[Event] Mixed Signals

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

Mixed Signals wrote:

Mission Title: Mixed Signals
Mission Type: Event
Mission Location: Nami no Kuni - The Wave Country
Shinobi Requirement: 1 v 1
Mission Rank: C
Mission Objective A: With close and friendly relations being shared between Nami no Kuni and Hi no Kuni, the Lord of the Wave Country has kindly granted the ninja of Konohagakure no Sato to construct a radio tower upon his land. The radio tower will allow the Shinobi of the Leaf Village to amplify their line of communication across the region and will hold key strategic benefits for the future. As a precaution, a small taskforce has been assigned as part of a Body Guard duty for the construction workers as well as all of their materials needed to construct the tower. It's your job to protect the crew and to protect the vital materials needed.
Mission Objective B: Upon discovering the news of a new radio tower being built within the Wave Country for the benefit of Konohagakure, the Mizukage has taken the move as a direct threat against the Mist Village due to the close proximity of the tower in regards to the Wave Country and Kirigakure. The Mizukage has tasked you to head over to the small island in order to sabotage the construction of the radio tower, the last thing Kirigakure needs is a pair of foreign ears listening over their country.

Village Representatives:

Konohagakure:

Kumogakure:

Kirigakure:

Posting Order:

RukaAyaka [Mission Object. A]
TNT [Mission Object. B]

It appears that after the death of Hokage the old and boring status quo of shinobi life has moved a little. Countries suddenly started to remember that perhaps their neighbors’ faithful smile isn’t as faithful as it seemed at first glance. Suddenly each leader, new or old, decided to change, expand, become stronger so that incidents such as happened between Konoha and Kumo would not repeat themselves. One may only wonder if the motivation behind such justifiable desires were to protect one’s people or to protect oneself and one’s monopoly of fear and violence. This new Hokage seemed to have a thing going on with loving one’s own village. Naming everyone “Guardians of the flame” and all. This may have seemed old fashioned as such praise of own village was more reminding of the old ways but perhaps at times such as these remembering the old ways was the way to go. Hisako personally haven’t seen or heard that much about the new Hokage, didn’t know much about him too, only what was widely spoken. She didn’t yet know if she was going to like him like the White Protector or just obey him. It didn’t really matter all that much. Hisako does missions not because someone asks so but because they are fun…

This particular mission was something rather new. Hisako hasn’t yet traveled to other countries except once when her family moved from Kiri to Konoha. She used to have enemies behind the walls of Konoha, but faith or luck made Hisako kill them beforehand just a month ago… What the girl was facing at this point was a whole new chapter of her life. Walking to the Wave Country seemed to be a breeze with the warm relations between Nami and Konoha. The mission sounded like it could be fun, sure Hisako has done body-guarding before but doing it in a different country is always a welcome change of pace. Was this to become Hisako’s daily life now that she became a Chunin? Traveling to other countries, protecting vital structures, being counted on, making a difference? This sounded great since stopping pranksters around the village never shouted “Making a difference” to the girl. This felt just great even if Hisako hid it behind her iron facades. Emotions weren’t welcome on the job, nor were they relevant after the job. She wasn’t sure if other shinobi liked her lack of opinion or emotions since it kind of meant lacking too much enthusiasm for all this “guardians of the flame” thing but ninja weren’t hired to like and feel, they were hired to act and Hisako felt like doing a whole lot of acting.

Finally Nami no Kuni came into sight. The journey didn’t really take all that long, had Hisako been a hyper active girl it may have seemed long and boring but now she was just a little excited about the mission she was given. Just as she entered some people came to meet her. This was rather convenient since she didn’t know a thing in this village. Such feelings came to the girl’s heart the very first time, being new and unaware of the environment, having no idea where you are and being dependant on other people to show you around. Sure the village wasn’t nearly as big and impressive as Konoha but it had it’s charm with all the rivers and people running about with their daily jobs. “The protector from Konoha?” an elderly man asked as Hisako glanced over him with a curious look, “Hisako” the girl nodded her head slightly. The man looked really happy to see her for some reason, he explained to the girl that they had all the things prepared but couldn’t really start the constructions until she was there as ordered by the leader of Nami. “Maybe it’s for the better, some villages might not be too happy about this tower standing here” Hisako always was a suspicious girl, seeing possible ambushes and “hidden clues” even in simple coincidences. “This tower will need protection even after being built, troublesome”, the man somehow foresaw Hisako’s thoughts and just let out “Too bad we don’t have our own ninja, we will keep having to hire people to watch over it…”

The man first lead Hisako to his home, the girl was expected to settle in there for the duration of her stay. Hisako wasn’t too excited about the whole living with other people thing especially when the man lived with his rather elderly wife and a young adult son who was also working for the construction. He told Hisako that this tower is really important for both villages and that Nami is forwarding really huge cooperative groups of workers into that. That made Hisako feel even more responsible for what she was about to do, this tower will have to be build or else Hisako will have a huge screw up on her mental record as well as her case. Having failed to rescue people and having so many deaths on her hands was hard as it was already for the girl… After a brief lunch and a little introduction with the family a large group of men came near the house, Hisako got startled but Inishi the elderly man laughed and calmed her down, “Those are the building crew, killing them would make things a little harder wouldn’t it?”. Hisako grinned a little, it seemed that the man had a sense of sarcasm and humor, Hisako just relaxed and quickly finished her meal.

With all the construction crew being assembled, Hisako and the builders went on to the construction. The tower was built on a large hill in the outskirts of the village just half an hour walk from Inishi’s house. This looked a really great spot to build a com tower: not many houses around, just some manors which were likely protected by the owners’ bodyguards making it simpler to protect the tower after it was built. After the crew assembled at the site, Inishi grinned “So whadaya think?” pointing at foundation of the tower built pre-time. Hisako pouted “You seem to know what you’re doing, let’s just hope I do to.” the girl was still slightly worried about some people that weren’t too excited about the tower pulling something and paranoia wasn’t something that went away easily… The man laughed up from the bottom of his gut, Hisako really wanted to have his trust in people, it almost seemed as if he didn't care...

Age : 30 Posts : 644

While a foreign country to Ochiba Hayaku, it was strangely familiar. This place reminded him of his own home of Kiri, just without the massive amounts of mist and fog. However, it felt more like a home than Kiri did. It had that small village atmosphere that you could only find in places where the only worry on the minds of the people was whether or not they were going to have enough crops and successful fishing to make it through the winter in a few seasons. It being the middle of spring, these people didn’t have to worry too much about the coming winter. With a heavy heart, Ochiba knew they didn’t have to worry about it at all, for soon, very soon, he would be their executioner.

A forest surrounded this small village. This forest was full with animal and plant life. This made a lot of sense, of course. Rivers were a constant factor, especially because this was only a small island in a great ocean. Nami no Kuni was just one of many islands, but this island in particular was very lush. It seemed as if everywhere you looked there was a flower gasping for sunlight or bugs crawling up and down a tree. This rich soil gave the inhabitants of Nami no Kuni a reason to grow crops; it was almost easy. Almost. The fields were on the west side of this small, humble village. Winding from southeast to west was a natural river that had carved its’ way through the island over a long period of time via erosion. Of course, the farmers of the village used it as a source of irrigation, feeding their crops with man-made paths from the steady, respectable river. Although the river was a small one, more like a stream with small fish and moss, it did the job the farmers needed it to do. And oh, how the farmers would need that river today.

The part of the forest that Ochiba was hidden in was on the east side. This portion of the forest was directly next to the village. In fact, after crossing the edge of the forest, the closest home was only several feet away. This portion of the area was a hill that started at the base of the forest and extending past where Ochiba lay in wait. The west portion of the forest was part of the small valley that the framers of the village had dug their heels into. This part of the forest was comparably far away from the village, designed purposefully so that the roots of the trees wouldn’t harm their crops. If the village needed any lumber, they would take away from that part of the forest, extending their potential farmland in the process. Through the middle of the village, going from south to north, was a dirt road, wide enough for carriages full of supplies so that the village could receive aid when necessary or so that caravans could travel through.

Ochiba had been scouting this location for the past twenty four hours. His kage had discovered the planning of the communications tower before construction had begun. The intel suggested that the workers would most likely be living in this small village. With this information in mind, Ochiba decided to scout both the area the intel had said the tower was to be made and this village. He started at the place where the tower was said to be built. Hiding in the forest around that area, he was able to observe the equipment and materials that the workers examined. It was indeed building materials, so Ochiba figured that he was in the right location. For some reason, however, the workers didn’t do anything with the supplies. This made Ochiba warry. At sundown, the workers left that area. Ochiba followed them from the woods, staying in the shadows and far enough away so that the villagers were barely visible at times, until he came across the village that the workers were said to live. He noted that this village was roughly thirty minutes away from the construction site. It was at this warm, home-like place that they stopped, and twenty four hours later, here was Ochiba, in the same forest with a great understanding of the village’s layout. After moving back and forth between the east and west sides of the forest, resting that night and waking up with the sun, Ochiba continued to move from place to place in the east forest, seeing every angle of attack.

He also noted the actions of the villagers. The elderly and the very young were farming, which was unusual. Farming tended to involve older children as well as the young children with young men supervising as they farmed. He noted that the generation of young men and older children were standing around, talking. Ochiba realized that the construction workers must have usually been farming but were taking the special assignment of building the tower. Seeing as they were burning daylight, they must have been waiting for something before they started...or someone.

Oh, and how they waited.

Ochiba sat in the shadows of the forest. His black robe and the black robes of the puppets helped him blend into the forestry, although even if he wasn’t blending with the shadows, it would take a very skilled train eye to catch a view of him from within the village. The only part of him that wasn’t shadow black was his demon mask, which was all red. However, it was hidden by the shadow of the hood he had on over it. His two puppets, Bloodhound and Birdcage, rested firm on his back due to a harness that could be undone with a simple press of a button. Patiently, he sat waiting to carry out the plan he had formulated. He kept the plan in his head, going over it over and over. The grass. The thatched roofs. The crops. Part two. Part three. The grass. The thatched roofs. The crops. Part two. Part three. He thought this over and over, visualizing his plan succeeding again and again. From time to time, he thought of his backup plans in case a step in the master plan went astray.

From the south side of the road that crossed through the river and the middle of the village came a figure. Ochiba’s brown eyes located the figure in between the trees. Before he could make out what exactly it was, the trees blocked his view again. Ochiba sat patiently, waiting for the figure to get into his vantage point. Again, he saw the figure in between the trees, and again, the trees quickly blocked the figure from his view. Ochiba turned his attention back to his straight shot of the village. Walking up the road towards the figure was a man. The figure came into view and Ochiba got the best look he could from that distance. The foreign figure didn’t have the bone structure of a man, but that of a woman. That was probably an advantage of studying Eijutsu: knowing anatomy. At the sight of this woman, the young men of the village sprang to life, hugging their families and finishing conversations. He saw the man take the woman to a house, and after some time passed, they left the house, which was one of many with thatched roofs. Then, as a group, the young men, and a few older men, accompanied the woman up the north part of the road, towards the construction site.

That must of been who they were waiting for. Ochiba wasn’t sure what made the woman so important. Maybe she was funding the expenditure. Maybe she was an architect. Or maybe, and hopefully this wasn’t the case, she was a shinobi. Ochiba’s heart sank a little bit. What if she was a shinobi? In that case, what if they were ALL shinobi, posing as villagers? Whatever was going on, he would take that woman out the first chance he got. He didn’t know why she was important, but, in Ochiba’s mind, she wouldn’t be important much longer. Of course, he could just be paranoid and she could be completely insignificant and could just be a relative passing through at the precise moment the workers needed to go to work on the construction of the communication tower. This thought eased his slight panic. He realized it wasn’t as realistic as her being important, so he would still aim for her if she was anywhere near when his plan went into action.

Ochiba gave a sigh. He wasn’t a fan of the tactic he was about to employ. He prefered an honorable fight, not hit and run tactics. Of course, he also prefered to have a team with him so that his strengths could shine through. The honor of the village and the completion of the mission was the most important thing, so his loyalty dictated that, if he must use shady tactics, then he would. He didn’t have to like doing it, though.

He watched the shadows the morning sun gave the world. It shone bright on this day with few clouds in the sky to block it. He tried not to think about what he was about to do from an ethical standpoint. It almost made him sick. All he thought about was the steps it would take to complete the mission, and killing these innocent...no, they weren’t innocent. They threatened Kiri. Killing these threatening forces was necessary, even if these threatening forces appeared to be children and elderly...he almost threw up in his mask. The butterflies in his stomach and his mixed emotions on this course of action affected him greatly. In the end, however, he re-motivated himself and steeled his mind.

By using the shadows the forest produced, he estimated that thirty minutes had passed from the moment the unexplained woman and the workers left the village, about enough time to reach the construction site. Now was the time to strike. Slowly, he stood up. With a deep sigh, he began his plan. He pushed past his hooded robe for a moment and into a pocket, pulling out his silver lighter that he had a professional craft with some of his savings. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it worked. He would surely put it to work now. He squatted down. He gave another deep sigh. Ochiba flipped the lid of the lighter up. He lit the grass around the area he was sitting on fire.

And thus it began.

He ran down the hill as fast as he could, every few feet stopping to set another small fire. Rapidly, he raced down the hill, starting a small fire in every area he hit. He didn’t expect to start a forest fire, but if something did start up, it would help. Of course, the flames he lit up weren’t big enough yet to alert the village by the time he hit the base of the forest. He charged up to the first house, reached up, and lit the thatched roof that had been drying in the morning sun for several hours. Almost instantly it lit and the fire on the roof spread quickly. If this weren’t such a dire situation, he would smile about his plan succeeding. He ran to the next house, lighting the roof on fire. He charged across the village, doing what damage he could to the roofs. He wasn’t going to be able to get every house, but from the plan he had laid out in his head after staring at the village for hours, he knew what houses would be the easiest for him to hit on the way out. After the third house, he charged to the main south/north road. An old woman stood, mouth open, cane in hand, shocked at what was going on. He knew that if she screamed and yelled, she’d alert the entire village, which he was not ready for. He bolted towards her, using his left hand to punch her in the jaw as he ran past. The elderly woman fell to the ground in pain and moaned. Ochiba felt horrible for doing it, but the mission came first. He was able to light four more roofs on fire, totalling seven out of thirteen houses. Practically over half of the village was now on fire, and the first roof he had lit, even though it had been just moments ago, was now ablaze, smoke pouring high into the air. A few of the fires he set in the forest had flared up and began consuming the grass and weeds all around it, beginning a forest fire. Of course, Ochiba didn’t know this, for he had a new target in his sights.

The crops.

By the time he hit the far west side of the village, yells and screams erupted all around him. Villagers dropped their tools they were using to farm and ran to their houses. At least, the elderly villagers did their best to run to the houses. The children just stood in amazement and shock at the sight. Ochiba used this moment of shock as a distraction and lit a few of the crops on fire, darting in and out of different fields. Villagers, not knowing what to do with themselves in their panic, noticed the crops going up in flames. They began pointing and yelling, giving away his position. Knowing he didn’t want to fight an entire village of kids, old people, and women, he ran for the west side of the forest. It took just over a minute for him to light the village on fire. Now he bolted to location two, a spot five minutes north of the village on the west side of the forest. From this spot, he would be able to barely see the village, but that was fine with him. His plan would work, he was sure of it.

Two minutes into his mad dash to the location, he looked back at the little village. The smoke was rising high into the sky, undoubtedly visible to the people at the construction site. They would know that their village was ablaze and come running back to save it or their family. Who wouldn’t? He knew that later he would feel horrible about this deed.

He reached his spot in just under five minutes. He was breathing heavy, but he had time to recover before he had to go back into action again. If the construction workers left the site as soon as they saw the now heavy smoke, he would have beaten them to his current location by about twenty minutes. Now it was a waiting game. Ochiba Hayaku rested in the shadows, his black attire helping to keep him hidden in the forest. He was several feet within the forest, hidden by the bushes and trees. He wasn’t as well hidden as he was earlier, but with the village just in sight and bound the be a focus of attention, he wasn’t too concerned with being spotted. Ochiba had several spots in the treeline in which he could see the road clearly, but unless anybody on the road was looking for him specifically, it would be difficult to spot him. He undid the harness that held his trusty puppets to his back and placed it on the ground, deliberately putting his puppets on the ground next to him. He took the robe off of Birdcage, but not off of Bloodhound. This way, he could blend in with Bloodhound well, because with the robes on they looked exactly alike, and he could utilize Birdcage’s abilities without worrying as to whether or not the robe would get into the way. He then took out five senbon and placed them lightly on the ground in front of him. With phase two ready to take place, he sat in the shadows, recovering his breath and taking his time.

[word count, 2680]

Ochiba's Lighter he used to start the fires:

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

As the day went by the work on the tower progressed slowly. Hisako never counted on it being so boring, as the men worked their backs off all she did was watch over them and the environment around, see that the materials are safe. While on paper Hisako’s job sounded exciting, the girl had to think really hard to remember the last time she’s been so bored. Sure she never seen constructions happen at such scale and progress at such speed, the large steel bars quickly rose up and formed a skeleton of the tower in just few hours. The object may still have been a far cry from an actual communications tower but by Hisako’s unprofessional estimations the construction shouldn’t take more than few days, maybe a week if the tower is really large, maybe longer if installing the communication tech takes long, Hisako was the worst person to judge equipment and technology, all the health monitors in hospital looked impressive yet the girl had no talent of telling just how it may have worked, if someone told Hisako that magic fueled them she would probably believed them. Seeing the large steel bars used in the construction really made Hisako value her job more, the materials looked expensive, not many houses in Konoha used metal materials and this construction must be really sophisticated and expensive to use similar kind of steel that blades could be made from. If this is blown, a lot of money and man-power goes down the drain.

The men were working in some kind of shifts: a dozen works on the tower, the other dozen either eats, does some other kind of work like looking over the blueprints that Inishi kept holding or rested. Hisako wasn’t their slaver but it seemed like a waste of workers. Then again she was no judge to how tired those men must’ve been after hours at work. Putting the foundation out of stone and some sticky filling material must’ve been a chore all by itself… Inishi came up with a bottle of water, offering Hisako some, the girl shook her head “Trust me, gramps, nothing would give me more satisfaction than taking last drops of water out from an old man but the air is somehow humid enough out here…” Hisako said. It was true that the air and the soil looked a lot damper and more humid than in Konoha, one of the reasons that crops must’ve been wondrous out here. The old builder laughed it up and took a huge gulp from the bottle, splashing some all over himself. Once again it seemed wasteful to the girl but she was a guard not a manager.

Hisako got completely bored over what seemed like a complete waste of her time, even her never-ending paranoia started faltering, what if nothing happens? What if Hisako will just spend a week or two here and the tower will be built without interruptions? Knowing her luck the girl pushed such thoughts away as much as possible. The last time she thought of such things twelve people died and Hisako almost ended up being one of them… Life always wants you dead, Hisako should know better than to think that all will go according to plan. Plans always fail, that’s why Hisako either never planned at all or made plans dead simple. Having nothing to do the girl’s mind slipped into thoughts – what would she do if she was a ninja from some nearby country? Something from Land of Rivers or Tanigakure comes in mind first, Kumo would have no interest in the tower except just the sake of messing with Konoha. Acting up just for such sake would be foolish plus Kumo is too far away, this goal would seem to wasteful for the means. Could Kirigakure want anything from this tower? They’d still have to cross a small portion of Land of Fire to get to the island but Hisako didn’t place any bets on Kirigakure…

Just as the girl’s thoughts wandered off, trying to predict an attack from another country, men started pointing fingers – their attention switched from the tower to pillars of smoke coming from the village, few others pointed at similar but thicker pillars bursting from the forest. The men started throwing their equipment and getting down from the heights that they erected the tower at. Just as the first man turned away from the tower a shuriken landed near his feet. “Is it the time we play target practice?” Hisako shouted. The men started making a riot, nothing Hisako couldn’t handle, she killed over twenty armed people just recently but those were the builders she was supposed to protect, Inishi tried to talk with Hisako instead of shouting rubbish like the rest “Hisako-san, those are our homes that may be on fire, our crops, our forests. The men want to protect it.”, Hisako sighed. She had a dilemma here: letting the men go put fires out was out of the question, going to help herself was abandoning her mission too. Hisako turned to Inishi, he seemed to have some authority over the men “Old-timer, there’s nothing the men can do, you live in a land OF RIVERS, there’s no way the villagers won’t put out some fires, if the forest fire catches up to us, I will personally help you take it out but if one man steps that way, I will kill him” the old man’s face went through a myriad of emotions but he looked like he understood Hisako’s words “Wouldn’t it make your mission harder?” the old man asked sarcastically, Hisako grinned “What good would it be for you if you’re dead?”, Inishi laughed out and turned away “Strange youth” he kept whispering to himself as he came to speak with the men.

This looked like the sabotage that Hisako was waiting for but seemed so not sabotage-like at the same time. Something of this scale could be interpreted as an attack of the village itself not an attempt to hinder a construction. The village economy will feel a sharp blow if the crops are destroyed even if the place is basically a swamp so Hisako hoped that the fire wouldn’t spread too much into the rice fields. “There’s nothing that the destruction of crops won’t take that the completion of the tower won’t bring, we have plenty of water around to put the fires out, the rivers are flooding with it…Here with Hisako-san at least we will be safe” Inishi tried to calm his men down. Despite minor quarrels taking part, the authority that the man and his junior had over the crew was somewhat enough to make the men settle down at least, over time the fires would be put down and the men should go back to work… Hisako really hoped so.

Were those fires a coincidence? Most likely not, the land is too damp and squishy, trees too wet and the air too humid for a conventional fire, it was a work of an arsonist. Why would he do something of such scale, put such a part of the village on fire? If he is found out his village would get in major trouble, this is almost like declaring war, an attack on entire village. The men still looked like they would burst into the flaming village, right into danger for their loved ones. “Is this how you respond to our complaints? Threats to kill us? Is that how people in Konoha are all like?” occasional shouts kept coming from the crew, Hisako looked onto them, turning her stare from the pillars of smoke “I’m not your manager, I’m your bodyguard, is it so hard to understand that neither of our jobs include rushing into fire to your death? This is an attack on your village, it will be put out, this is an island surrounded by waters and rivers, your lands aren’t dry enough to burn it all up. If you go there I won’t be able to protect you, if I don’t kill you running, the attacker will during the commotion or the fire will. I’ll tell you how we are in Konoha, we do our jobs and let other people do theirs, you have people that deal with fires right? You have me to protect you so why don’t you guys do your job, I do mine and no one except that punk who did this personal offense to your village dies today?” This must’ve been the longest speech Hisako has ever given, wasn’t too much of a speech really, Hisako just said what she had on her mind. The men looked at least a little calmer, some still rustled but some got on the spiritual kind of fire and even went on to resume working. Hisako just hoped that those that still quarreled with Inishi and his boy would soon join them as well…

Spoiler:

Age : 30 Posts : 644

Ochiba had been waiting longer than he thought he would have to. He had been certain that the villagers would come rushing back to their homes to save their wives, parents, and children immediately. They could have ran back to the village from their elevated location in time to put out the fires and keep damage to the village to a minimum. Sure, they still would have had to request assistance from a nearby village because their food source and homes would all be damaged, but they’d still have a village. An hour had past since the first fire was started, and despite the village’s best efforts with their reduced numbers and capable hands, there was not a village left. All that was left was black smoke rising from the burning buildings, crops, and the east side of the forest. The fact that the forest had caught fire and had spread surprised Ochiba. He had heard of solitary cigarettes and cigars setting entire forests on fire, but he had never fully believed it. His simple little lighter had just destroyed a small village, and now it was working on destroying the island’s lush nature. It was almost sad to see the beauty of the place lit up in flames with pillars of smoke rising into the air. All that could be heard was destruction at this point. The crack of the fire echoed all around him, as did the screams and the crying.

Ochiba had to stay vigilant now, especially because there was a wildfire spreading. He was at a safe distance for now, but it was possible that the fire could jump the road and the small river and reach his side of the forest. If that happened, plan b would have to go into effect. For now, there was no reason to relocate. The workers had to come back at some point. The fire had been going on for an hour, and from their vantage point, there was no reason for them to not see the thick, black smoke that traveled high up into the sky. He wouldn’t doubt it if the smoke could be seen from the parts of Kiri that weren’t hidden by fog. He hoped it could. It would make the story after this worth telling even more so than it already was.

He glanced all around, looking for something alarming, before returning back to his thoughts.

What could be preventing them from coming back? There could have been more shinobi sent to destroy the tower that he wasn’t aware of and that had already taken care of the issue. The mission would be complete, but that would highly upset him. Ochiba didn’t want anybody else doing the mission he was assigned if he didn’t know about them. He figured that possibility highly unlikely, though. It was in the kage’s best interest to let his shinobi work in teams. But still, something was holding them back from saving what was most important to them.

Ochiba’s eyes darted around again, even looking up at the trees to see if something was traveling in the branches. Nothing was, so he returned to his thoughts.

What could possibly be keeping them away? His thoughts wandered to the mysterious woman he had seen before he started the ambush. Maybe she really was important and she found the tower more important than saving the lives of the villagers. He hoped for humanity’s sake that that wasn’t true. Of course, he wasn’t one to talk much. He just destroyed an entire village full of defenseless people. It was bad enough that he had to commit that act. He didn’t want any other human being to want to be, or even have to be, equally as cruel.

Ochiba looked towards the canopy on his side of the forest, looking for smoke. There was none above his side of the forest, so he figured the fire hadn’t jumped yet. The wind was blowing the other way, from west to east, so that it was easy to tell if his section was on fire. Noting that it wasn’t, once again, he looked for any coming threat, and realized he was safe for now, adding to his paranoia.

It was about noon now, for the sun was directly above the burning village. Steam was coming up from the river a few minutes away. The hot sun paired with the intense flames was unpleasant. Ochiba could even feel the heat from where he was, several minutes away from the fires. He could see heat waves off in the distance. The threat of the men not coming back worried him. He liked this plan better than his first backup plan. It was far less brutal, if you can imagine that. The men not coming back meant that he might have to change tactics. He gave another sigh at the thought of it. Another hour and he would have to move.

Maybe I should move now. He pondered that thought for a moment. No, let’s do this with as minimal brutality as I can get at this point. He thought about it even longer, now. He realized that, by the villager’s not coming back, he had no option but to be as brutal as possible. Minimal brutality died with the woman and children of the village that died by burns or by smoke inhalation. Ochiba was going to have to massacre the men as well so that the tower couldn’t be built by these people. It would also send a clear message that anybody remotely involved with threatening Kiri was going to regret it, assuming that they lived long enough to feel regret.

Ochiba scanned his environment again, looking for anything that would trouble him further.

[word count, 968]

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

As the time went on the men started to get bored, they may have been enraged at Hisako for not letting them rush back to their village but rage can only keep your mind occupied for so long, eventually most of them went back to work. This time almost the whole crew was working on the tower instead just one shift. Hisako didn’t know how to feel about this, on one hand it looked great because this would make the construction go faster and the tempo that they were working on was really impressive, the men seemed to have a lot of hidden rage focused at Hisako and the person that set their homes on fire and fears that their loved ones could be dead right now. This gave them energy to work like they were insane. On the other hand there will come a period when all of the working men will get tired, leaving the progress completely frozen. Hisako called Inishi and asked him about this, the old man looked sad, Hisako couldn’t exactly tell how he was feeling at this point “I appreciate the concern after the threats to kill us, I think it will be best if the men are allowed to do whatever, one guy told me “If we can’t go home, let’s at least do everything we can here.”” Inishi was at this point doing the work of a construction manager, shouting and cursing on everyone that did something wrong and telling people what to do. “Is he trying to take all their anger on himself?” Hisako wondered, the old man seemed to have forgotten that it is his family that was caught in a fire.

Hisako started to think what other options she may have had and nothing in particular came in mind. “The people back in the village should know how to deal with a fire, it was a logical move to make” Hisako kept thinking yet the smoke from several locations just kept rising in the same manner for hours, could the villagers been unable to put out a fire? Is that even possible? Hisako remembered the multiple times that Konoha had been burning, sometimes even during her missions it only took few organized groups of people to take it out and Konoha is in a landmass, this place was surrounded by waters and rivers of varied sizes. It was only logical to assume that they would deal with it… Even if the villagers didn’t, Hisako’s mission is to protect the builders and the tower. Whatever hidden agenda the arsonist may have had he was shooting blanks by setting the village on fire, if Hisako finds the attacker’s identity or at least the village he’s from and reports this back to Hokage, eventually the leader of Nami will know as well, knowing him, this could mean war between Nami and whatever village is responsible. Sabotaging a com tower is one thing, setting a village on fire and causing mass death-count is another.

Despite the fact that it was the peaceful village that paid the price, Hisako kept thinking that the tower was indeed the original target of the attacker. There was simply no tactical use to risk war just to burn a peaceful village of fishers and builders. The girl kept looking around, sometimes double or even triple checking if the materials were safe, if the constructions were proceeding as usual. The men occasionally pointed their fingers at the smoke, they seemed to be taking a whole different shape now, instead of pillars they were spreading and the sources of the smokes were increasing. This meant that the huge fire is either put down or no longer has anything to burn and is dying out of it’s own size. If it’s the second option that means that the whole village is either dead or scattered. If they are dead it means problems for both sides, the men will want vengeance for the deaths, they will also be hard to control and keep in check. The men stopped working, it appeared to be another lunch break even if the time of lunch has passed. Inishi sat down on the same pile of rocks and materials that Hisako was sitting on. “The construction is going faster than we thought, if could only take four days to complete…Do you think the fire killed everyone?” Hisako closed her eyes, lowering her head “Do you think your men could work overnight in shifts like before? It would take you two days less to complete this, one shift of men can rest while others work, I’d be on constant watch, I have remained awake for far more than that…”

Inishi looked shocked, “This is madness, the men are already shaken by whatever is happening at the village, there may not even be a village, how am I to ask them of this? Plus you are scary as you are, I get the feeling I don’t want to see you cranky!” Hisako pouted, if the men agreed to work overnights for two days straight it would take them record time to complete this, plus the alarming rate at which the tower grows could lure the saboteur out and make him or her more desperate, more likely to make mistakes. Hisako looked Inishi in the eyes “Could you ask them…P-p-please?” this was one of the less likely words for Hisako to say, the manner in which she said it probably made the man realize just how unconventional the situation was, he turned away to look at the smoke coming from the village, his face looked sad as ever, he seemed to have some memories that he didn’t want to talk about “I’ll try, girl, I’ll tell them everyone’s dead and that we need to work our asses of to make that count, I’ll try to keep their rage away from you, Hisako-san, their scorn is not what you need at the moment”. Hisako grunted “Neither is their approval, if they refuse to work overnights we will just be sitting ducks longer”. Hisako just wanted to wait this out, eventually the attacked would have to confront her, there’s no way she would not see him coming, she’s been surveying the environment for long enough to know the most likely places for an assault, being a stealthy assassin-type, Hisako went over many scenarios of how she would act as well, how she would try to sabotage the construction.

At this point she was sitting on a pile of rubbish and leftovers from the materials, the unused materials were stored in a wooden building just twenty metres away, she would see him targeting the materials, the builders were the only thing that came in mind at this point. The tower wasn’t really tall enough for a fall to kill them but one may never know, if they proceed with greater speeds, Hisako may need to move in closer to the site and away from the materials, overseeing both may just prove too hard, especially if the men agree to keep working. Inishi returned, “They’re mad as hell, they agreed to work overnights but in three shifts, also they said that they will stop working for several hours now, they need to let the goo they put in the connecting parts that holds the floors together stick up, there’s only that much that can be done". “Is there anything I could do to make it go faster?” Hisako asked, the answer that Inishi gave her satisfied her, “If you’re as bad in constructions as you are at talking with them, you’d only make it worse, plus the men would think a woman in a construction site would be a bad sign…Like it could get any worse…” the old man cracked a small grin, while he may have been smiling, the girl seen that he was crying inside. The girl appreciated what the old-timer has been doing, serving as the man that knows how to talk with them, someone the men trust, without him Hisako didn’t know what she would do…

Age : 30 Posts : 644

The fire was moving faster than expected. The fire in the village still lived on, although it was unnecessary at this point. There weren’t any structures left standing and the crops were all but gone. The fire on the east side of the forest, however, had much reason to still live. It was destroying that reason at an alarming rate. The area he had initially set on fire was now lost to the flames. The destruction he caused was doubling at an alarming rate, engulfing the east side of the forest. The smoke was getting thicker and more black by the seconds, blanketing the east side of the small island. The fire was so incredibly strong now that it jumped the road and the river and began destroying the west side; the side he was on. He could see thick smoke coming from an area just a few minutes away on his side. It had only been about thirty minutes, not the hour he expected, but it was time to relocate.

Ochiba reached down and carefully put his senbon back into his pocket. He would still use them, most likely, but he didn’t need them at this moment. He grabbed Birdcage’s robe and tossed it into the forest behind him. He had plenty more of those at home.. He put the strap the harness under the armpits of his two puppets and put the harness on over his robe. He didn’t have time to slip the harness through the slits of his own robe. At this point, there was no point in being too stealthy. It was just going to be easier at this point to be the bull in a china shop. He walked out to the road, faced north, and began walking towards his target.

Target one, that woman. Target two, the workers. Target three, the supplies. He probably wouldn’t be able to take out the tower all together, but if they had reached a certain part of construction, he could mess up certain parts of it. That part would depend on what he found at the construction site. Ochiba wanted to finish it quick when he got there so that he could exit the island from the north before the forest to the north of the tower caught on fire. If this mission got delayed for whatever reason, he would have to risk his life going through the flaming forest or back the way he came to escape the island. He didn’t want to have to go back the way he came. It pained him enough that he had killed those villagers, even though they threatened Kiri with this communications tower.

He marched on towards his fate, the fire growing fierce behind him. The falling of trees echoed all around the island. He would look back every few minutes and note that the smoke was thicker. The fire had reached the canopy on the east side. Ochiba started speed walking, knowing that the fire was only going start catching up to him at this point.

After a twenty minute walk, he could see the construction site. It was on a slight incline, but the incline was almost not worth taking note of. The forest completely surrounded it on all sides but the south; the direction he was coming from. Some of the workers were working on the tower while some were resting. This confused Ochiba greatly. There was absolutely nothing stopping them from doing anything about their forest or their village. It was almost as if they were perfectly fine with their families being dead. This island was crazy. Anywhere else, fathers and grandfathers would give their life to save their family. In this place, the fathers didn’t care about their family and their lifestyle. His eyes searched for the woman he had seen from earlier. He couldn’t find her body frame. Of course, he was only barely able to make out the people from his current location.

He took off the harness, leaving it on the ground. He could get another if he made it out of this situation. He took his two puppets by the hand and began walking again. When he was a bit closer, he could see everything in better detail. He saw a wooden building with crates near it. Those must be supply crates.He scanned the workers again, searching for the woman. Again, he didn’t see her. She must have been somewhere out of sight. Well, where was out of sight? He couldn’t see her if she was behind the crates. The tower wasn’t at a point now to where he wouldn’t be able to see her if she were inside, due to the fact that they were at the part of the construction stage where the frame was being built. He couldn’t see her if she was off in the forest somewhere. He couldn’t see inside the wooden building, so who knows what could have been in there. He didn’t have time to sneak around and investigate where she might be. The fires were getting close. At this point, he was roughly fifty yards away from the place his first target was hiding, although he didn’t know she was there. As viciously as he could, he yelled at the workes, ”WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS THE WOMAN?”

He dropped the puppets to the ground now, preparing his plan. Swiftly, he pushed his robe away momentarily, reached into his pocket, and pulled out five of his six senbon, holding them in his right hand. Ochiba’s eyes darted around. The shout had gotten his adrenalin pumping again, ready for battle. He was prepared for an ambush, focusing his sense of sight and hearing to potentially save his life. The woman might not be a shinobi for all Ochiba knew, but he wasn’t going to take chances.

[word count, 982]

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

Hisako kept her vigilance over the materials and the spots she marked as most likely for an attack, being a stealthy assassin type, the girl knew all about those things. As the time went by, another detail attracted the girl’s attention. The smoke was changing again, it was possible that the fire may have been incoming from the east side, just from the side of the village. This was alarming, not because a fire was incoming, there were ways to protect an open building site from a fire if the workers had enough preparation time but more so due to the fact that if the fire is incoming, that means that the villagers didn’t stop it. This was the real problem, if they didn’t stop it, it’s likely they are dead or soon to be dead. If the fire was so fierce, Hisako felt glad that she didn’t let the men go. How much could twenty men have done if the whole village for some reason failed to put it out? Hisako wasn’t very worried about the fire hindering the construction, it may burn down the forest but eventually it will die out because it will reach the river and it can’t sustain itself from coal it made along the way. There is little to catch on to here, the basis and the foundation are made from stone and some material that sticked them together. Hisako wasn’t an ace to constructions but she knew that doesn’t catch fire. More so there were fourteen men at every shift resting, they had plenty of water to mix their materials in. The area they were in was logged of all the big trees, those were used to build the village no doubt.

Inishi was currently on the shift that worked on the tower, Hisako thought that the manager wasn’t suppose to work but he most likely understood how important the tower is, he knew that this tower is all the village would have left, he wasn’t stupid, he must’ve known what the smoke meant. A man approached Hisako, he looked both a little scared and angry, Hisako knew that look, he viewed her as a tyrant, how a slave would look at his slaver except the man understood that Hisako may have saved his life by that cruel move, that was possibly the only reason the men were still working, this tower was a memento of their village, a requiem for those that died. “A fire is approaching from the east…”, Hisako grunted “Good, you will have light to work by”, Hisako’s answer must’ve startled the man even more “I know that river is just some time down the hill and there isn’t much to fuel a big fire around here but could you at least act you care? I meant to ask you if the men that are free from work could dig up a trench around the tower and fill it with the water from the river down the hill and the one we have, just in case we would make a protective wall… You’re mission is our safety right, what do you think?” Hisako lowered her head to think, this was an interesting idea, it could work, wouldn’t be to hard to complete as well – it could be done by two shifts, they have plenty of water and the fire could serve as a lighting for the constructions at night. Still the men would have to walk down the hill to the river several times which was about fifty yard walk, there were little trees to assault them from and little cover. Attacking them would be hard at that time. Hisako nodded “I’m not your boss, if it seems a good idea – go do it”, the man looked a little relieved “I was worrying you would kill us while we tried.” He said with a little smile.

It was interesting how these men thought. They most likely have seen the smoke incoming and by this time have connected two and two. They must’ve known their village was most likely dead. Yet they smiled and wept at the same time, smiled while working and wept during rests. The sadness gave them determination to keep working and after an hour or so a respectable trench was made around the tower. Hisako didn’t see the men that were digging it, they were at the current moment digging deeper at the side of the river down north, the trench was wide enough to give breathing space but Hisako didn’t know if it would work – it seemed wide enough to keep fire from catching to anything as small as it would be around these parts due to lack of big trees and the open wasteland of a construction site. The trees around the site however still provided enough cover for a saboteur to attack and it worried Hisako, the trees weren’t old and large but still big enough to provide cover. By now the attacker must’ve grown desperate. He must’ve seen the construct grow even faster after his or her act and if Hisako was in his place, she would want blood. The shifts changed, the men from the trench returned, Hisako wasn’t sure if the trench even needed to be filled, from her experience a wasteland doesn’t burn, even more so with a trench, she came down the pile of junk she was on to voice that. “Hey, don’t fill this just yet, rest up, you dying of exhaustion wouldn’t be too nice”, Inishi who was drinking from a clean bucket nodded, the men seemed to have felt at least few warmer feelings towards Hisako. As Hisako made her way back on to her vantage pile of construction junk, she listened to the men eating and drinking, Hisako was hungry and thirsty too but she kept watching. It was one of those moments when you think something is going to happen and you wait patiently thinking “Any time now”. The men kept talking about some big attack on their village, how many people died. From what Hisako gathered it was during the war, just how many times had this village been sacked?

”WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS THE WOMAN?” a voice echoed throughout the whole construction site. Hisako jumped from the startle, she wasn’t expecting anything from that spot and seemingly the workers weren’t as well, the men jumped up, some ran up to the tower, some maybe thought that this was a man from the village. Quickly Hisako improvised a weapon, she saw where her target was but she didn't see every detail, just something looking like a puppet on the ground near him. “A puppeteer, why does it always have to be puppets?” Hisako thought to herself while remembering the last puppet users she met - a delivery boy from Kumo and her teammate - Sael. They didn’t get a chance to fight but the one from Kumo annoyed Hisako greatly. The girl had two plans of actions prepared, they were short and simple only the first part was different depending on the situation. Hisako pulled three shuriken out of the pouch and a little string, cutting it with the shuriken. The girl swiftly tied the string to shuriken and to a explosive note improvising an explosive shuriken. The reasoning was just because no one did this and the attacker wouldn’t be expecting this, more so the way she was going to use it. Hisako took the two shuriken into one hand, the explosive one on the other and threw the ordinary, then the explosive one. With the way Hisako planned, her target would either get hit by the projectiles he didn’t see coming or somehow evade them but he either wouldn’t see the third one or wouldn’t guess it’s rigged. Just as the third shuriken would hit or be evaded or deflected , Hisako would activate the tag

Stuff used:

Age : 30 Posts : 644

Ochiba Hayaku’s brown eyes scanned the construction site through his demonic mask, his two puppets at his side, his senbon in hand. Some of the workers stared at him. Some of the workers ran for cover. He wasn’t interested in what they were doing, however. He was only interested in finding his first target. Of course, he didn’t have to wait long. Movement to his right caught his eye. Twenty meters away from the construction site on the east side was that wooden building, and out of the wooden building came a womanly figure. His mind instantly sprang into action. His hands shot down to the feet of his puppets in preparation to use them for slaughter. Then he realized that she was much too far away. Being fifty yards (or roughly forty-five meters) away from the construction site, and her being twenty meters away from the construction site, if he had time to work the math on her distance, he would know that she was about fifty meters away. That was much farther than Kugutsu no Jutsu would allow. So he stayed kneeling down for a moment. He saw her reach back, as if to throw something. She threw whatever was in her grasp. This set him into action. With his puppet’s feet in his hand, as well as the five senbon secured by his forefinger and middle finger, he bolted up the hill towards the construction site, keeping his eyes on her. She threw again as he began to run. Ochiba had several solid seconds of running, due to the distance between them. A few seconds after he began his dead sprint, there was a thudding several meters behind him. There was also a strange sizzling. A moment later, when he had even more distance, an explosion large enough to break bones went off where he had been. He was a safe distance in front of where his enemy had targeted him at this point, but the explosion still surprised him a little bit. Those must have been explosion tags. She is definitely a shinobi.

Ochiba kept his eyes on the woman as he ran towards the construction site. He would have to alter his plan in the middle of everything, but he was okay with that. It was a simple, effective plan and could be easily added to. The thought of how quickly she tried to attack him crossed his mind. What if he was a shinobi that had been sent to back her up? That wouldn’t have been good for her. This struck inspiration in Ochiba. He had only been running for a few seconds, and now thirty meters away from the construction site, yelled out, ”What are you doing?! I’m on your side!” There was always the possibility that she was as paranoid as he was and assumed that everybody that claimed to be on her side wasn’t. There was also the possibility that she was skilled at detecting lies by the sounds of a voice. Any way it went, it was worth a shot.

All the while he was running, he stayed ready to evade an attack made by the woman. If she threw anything else, or used a ranged jutsu, he had his practiced maneuvers that he would utilize. His eyes stayed glued to her, and if she relocated, his eyes would follow. His body continued moving to his overall target: the tower. There was nothing he could do to it at the moment, but his mission wasn’t really to bring the tower down. It was to make sure it didn’t get built. Part of doing that had already taken place. He burned down the village and set a wildfire, meaning that this area would have to be evacuated soon or the risk of death by smoke inhalation was present. He could also kill the workers. If there wasn’t anybody to build the tower, it wouldn’t get built. Not only that, but he could destroy the supplies he found. The tower couldn’t be built without anything to build it with. Even after that, workers could be imported, as well as supplies, but his mission would be a success if he made those funding the tower import the two. He kept this in his subconscious, for his conscious mind was preoccupied on his first target, the woman he now knew was a shinobi. Ready for anything, he ran, trying to get five meters away from the construction site.

[word count, 752]

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

It was too bad that the figure managed to get away from the range of the explosion. This was a neat attempt and Hisako could’ve definitely felt better if the saboteur was incapacitated or better yet – dead. He did move at a remarkable speed and was seemed to be able to calculate distance between them as being to great to attack. That was Hisako’s deduction because he kept moving. Also he was a little too far to identify any details that interested Hisako, she could deduce so little from what she had seen so far, the boy was quite fit, he managed to get clear out of the blast zone pretty quick but Hisako thought she could outspeed him if she tried. The shinobi also was rather tall and slender, a perfect build for a puppeteer. The fact that he wielded two puppets and his rather teen-like build Hisako thought he should be a young ninja, probably still a genin, nevertheless Hisako was never the one to underestimate people. Still he looked inexperienced, the way he carried his mission was just reeking of inexperience – a sabotage mission is supposed to be carried out silently, with discretion, with grace, not so different from an assassination. Did he think that the fire would stop the constructions? There was a river nearby, the workers could quickly get to another side or use the water to put the fire out, plus from where he was, the fire would still reach him faster than the site.

The boy attempted to play it smart by bluffing, smart only to him. Had Hisako been a silly little girl, she may have fallen for the trick. The way he shouted out on the workers implied differently. Also Hisako was given this mission. Alone. It was very unlikely for Konoha to send reinforcements especially so fast and without some conditions rising. Granted those conditions are currently there – the village has been burnt to the ground which is something that will no doubt be remembered later on but there was simply no possible way for the reinforcements to have arrived in such short time. Also the Hokage must’ve read Hisako’s profile before sending her out, he must’ve known her difficulties of working in a team, it is highly unlikely that she would be given one even under difficult conditions, a teammate like Hisako would put the whole team in danger. Hisako did think she should act that she fell for it for a little but then got over it. This man is responsible for burning an entire village. “How old are you?” Hisako replied, this was an insult on many levels, one that suggested his inexperience for even trying such simple trick, also may have taken as something that insulted his youth. Any friendly would’ve been briefed on Hisako’s trigger-happy personality and wouldn’t have taken a similar approach. Still those were only thoughts, Hisako had no clear proof of him being an enemy other than her deduction but she didn’t care about that.

The boy seemed to be moving away from the construction site, Hisako descended down the pile of junk she was on and rushed up to a worker who was still dazzled by what was happening around. She leaned up to him and whispered into his ear, then pointed at him with her chin, the other workers caught on. They were following Hisako with their eyes the whole time. She told the worker to move to the river, that is basically them moving to the last place the fire will reach, also it will put Hisako between the boy and the workers, putting some distance between the workers and the field, removing a possible target. The workers followed the man’s lead. Hisako stayed in the construction ground, keeping her eyes on her target. Now that she knew that he was a saboteur it almost immediately became a secondary target. Removing him from the equation would make things all the way easier. Hisako simply stood at the center of the construction site. “By the way, there’s being cool and then there’s overdoing it…Really?Setting a village on fire?” Hisako kept taunting the boy, maybe with proper taunting he would lose it and stop running around. Hisako had no problems about facing him directly on the construction grounds, her style wasn’t a particularly destructive one, neither are most of the puppet styles. In fact she would prefer a more direct confrontation at this point…

Age : 30 Posts : 644

Ochiba’s eyes, which were still glued to his target, observed her walk over to the workers and motion for them to get behind her. This was a wise move, and obviously his ploy hadn’t fully convinced her. ”How old are you?” Ochiba took the emotional jab in stride. He was not one to get offended easily, but he realized that the insult was there. He may have been young, and this might have only been his third mission, but the insult only hardened him and made him more determined to successfully complete his mission.

He watched her as he slowed a bit, as he was closer to his destination. She moved to the center of the construction site in the direct path that he was headed. An upfront confrontation was about to occur. Of course, she could have an ambush in wait, or this could really just be a clone, so he kept his eyes and ears open. Ochiba stopped in his tracks roughly five meters away from the shinobi. He dropped the puppets once again, keeping the five senbon between his forefinger and middle finger. She spoke again: ” “By the way, there’s being cool and then there’s overdoing it…Really?Setting a village on fire?” Under his mask, a smirk could be found. This shinobi wasn’t an idiot. However, he wasn’t ready to drop his mind game quite yet.

“So let me get this straight,” he began. “We pay you good money to come protect our villagers as they build this construction tower for you. You then allow for an entire village to go up in flames and allow our forests to catch on fire. Very few of the villagers that were in the village when it caught on fire lived. Not only that, you throw bombs at me. And on top of ALL that, you proceed to insult me. Do you know who I am?!” Remaining ever vigilant, he raised his voice. “I am the nephew of the Lord of the Wave Country, sent to gather these villagers to save their village, as well as be refunded for your pitiful attempt to fulfill our expectations. This is an outrage! You’re so worried about getting your tower built for your tactical purposes that you neglect your duties to us! Are all of you this negligent and blind?”

I should have gone into acting, Ochiba thought to himself. If this ploy didn’t work on her, he would have to kill her. There was no other way. He steeled his mind, preparing for the act. All the while, he did his best to pay attention to anything odd that might happen around him. He didn’t want to be caught in an ambush unprepared. Even if the ploy didn’t work on the shinobi, there was a chance it would work on the villagers. Maybe turning the villagers against her would be beneficial. If they believed she was attacking the nephew of their lord, who knows, maybe it would push them over the edge. They were most likely already angry for not letting them go back to the village to save it. He was sure at this point that her having to protect them prevented her in her own mind from letting them go back to put out the fire. They were more than likely even more furious and worried now that he said that very few villagers had survived. He would have to wait a moment and see how that situation played out.

In the meantime, while staying observant of his surroundings, he listened very carefully to his environment. He could begin to hear the crack of the fire and the falling of flaming trees. This was going to have to be a quick confrontation if there was one. There was probably going to be one. He kept his master plan in mind, using plan b to set up the master plan. It would be an interesting combination that would take much coordination, but he had practiced it over and over again. He was confident in his ability to be successful with it. Now it was just a matter of time.

The construction site was a large, circular clearing, similar to a cul de sac. Close to the north side of the forest was the actual tower that was being built. At this point, the infrastructure was still being built. Behind the woman, who was near the center, was the ditch that had recently been built. Behind that ditch, to the side of the tower from Ochiba’s point of view, were the villagers. Behind them was the supplies, with the wooden building twenty meters away from the supply crates. The ground here was mostly flat, having been cleared of most debris in order for the construction to run smoothly. Ochiba was just five meters away from the woman, a good distance away. It was far enough to be able to react from a medium range attack but close enough for him to utilize his strengths. He was excited to see how this scene would play out.

[word count, 863]

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

Hisako was a little relieved to find the boy picking up on her insults and letting this matter become a direct confrontation. While an indirect one with both of them hiding and trying to pin each other down could’ve been more to Hisako’s assassin-like style, it would’ve also been a lot more troublesome and dragged on unnecessarily long. Hisako was never the one to like dragging things. Direct confrontation was what she tried to achieve and she seemed to have gotten it. The boy did look rather jumpy, he must’ve expected Hisako to have someone as backup or maybe have a trick up her sleeve. Still this probably worked best the way she done it – the real one and only standing in front. Hisako didn’t count on her secondary target being a clone. That would drag things too much for him as well. Hisako wondered just how this youth liked to do things, from his rather hasty and very unprofessional by Hisako’s standarts actions at the village she presumed that he is one of more hasty types, his entrance to the scene before could’ve been called hasty as well. Even so he was playing things rather defensively at this point, he shown no attempts to attack the girl which was odd, did he really count on Hisako believing his little roleplay?

The boy got his puppets prepared, those were a fancy piece of work, not the best Hisako seen but still impressive nevertheless: one looked very human-like, possibly the one used for offensive, Hisako wasn’t too worried as she was confident in her abilities in weaponry enough to take it out, the other one looked more dangerous to Hisako – it looked like a bulky defensive type tool and those always seemed the most threatening to the girl. None of those puppets had any too obvious weaponry, still Hisako guessed that the smaller one uses blades one way or another, the other being either a shield or something of the more defensive kind. Those were quick deductions made by Hisako in just couple of moments. She didn’t think that the confrontation would take too long, she didn’t overestimate her abilities as well, if the boy was sent here, it meant his Kage trusted him. The boy and his masks shared similar masks, they may have served as a small protective layer but Hisako didn’t think it was significant, must’ve been a visual or intimidating thing. It didn’t work to the boy’s favor as well since Hisako was more intimidated by his mask, therefore leaving less spots for underestimating the boy than she would’ve had by just his face. The girl took a feint look at the youths forehead, the mask on the youth's face covered up his forehead protector, Hisako didn't really fancy that so she thought to herself that she would have to remove it either by force or from his dead body.

The boy still kept his roleplaying face on, declaring himself as a nephew of the Lord of the Wave. Hisako never bought it for a second but the attempt was incredible, whether for the boy’s skill in acting or the ridiculous belief that Hisako would believe his words. “Oh, you’ve done a remarkable job so far, nephew of the Lord of the Wave Country, your mission was to protect the villagers and yet you failed to protect a single one and yet my mission was to protect this tower and I’ve managed to keep twenty villagers alive…I’d say I’m far more qualified to keep those people under my watch, perhaps instead of playing dress-up nd covering with fancy masks you should've helped your people?” Hisako really hoped that this would end the boy’s ridiculous attempt of tricking her. The girl wondered if she could pull off a single attack take down of this brat, there was one move in her arsenal that fit taking puppeteers on particularly well since it exploited their main weakness – their back. Most puppeteers keep their puppets forward and this is a smart move since it in a way protects them from a frontal assault, after all puppeteers are the most vulnerable part of the combination and usually frail and defenseless as impressive as their puppets may be…

Quickly Hisako reached for her pouch, taking out a smoke pallet, raising it into the air and tossing it into the ground as the smoke engulfed her and concealed her hands, Hisako made a simple clone that charged head out at the boy. This was a strategy more fitting for those that knew Hisako better since they knew she was likely to charge in a frenzy when enraged. Hisako herself however used the cover of the smoke and the distraction of her clone and her remarkable speed to quickly burst out of it and hide into the trench as the smoke spread out, the girl used the trench to move to a position further away where she could not be seen running up to the boy from behind. The girl clenched her hand into a fist and a small lightning charge went through it, not a significant one but strong enough to numb the muscles and nerves of the receiving end, using his puppets, something that required precision would prove difficult if the hit landed which was likely due to the distraction provided by the clone and the smoke. It would take a lucky guess that Hisako would come from behind or great perception to avoid or counter this blow, still it took Hisako about ten seconds after the spread of the smoke to sneak behind the boy. “If the kid can’t use his puppets, this would be wrapped up quickly” Hisako thought.

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Age : 30 Posts : 644

“Oh, you’ve done a remarkable job so far, nephew of the Lord of the Wave Country, your mission was to protect the villagers and yet you failed to protect a single one and yet my mission was to protect this tower and I’ve managed to keep twenty villagers alive…I’d say I’m far more qualified to keep those people under my watch, perhaps instead of playing dress-up and covering with fancy masks you should've helped your people?” These lines focused Ochiba, transfixing him on the woman five meters in front of him. He now realized that there was no bluffing his way out of a confrontation. Internally, a part of him sighed. This was indeed a dangerous situation. Not only was he facing a shinobi, who, based on her forehead protector, was from Konoha. Konoha was known for some of the most powerful clans in all of the nations. Ochiba could only hope she wasn’t one of the famed Nara. He never wanted to run into one of those shinobi on the battlefield. Not only was he facing an unknown shinobi with unknown abilities and unknown intentions, but he may have to also fight a horde of angry village men before he was ready. Of course, she was undoubtedly assigned to not only protect the tower, but the villagers building the tower. If they attacked mid-battle, assuming it got to a point that it could be considered a battle, it could potentially play into his favor.

Now that it was clear he had no hope of lying his way to victory, he prepared his offensive. He held five senbon between his forefinger and middle finger. He pointed his fingers downward so that the senbon were horizontal to the ground. Senbon were originally used for acupuncture. They were a tool used for targeting the knots in muscles so that the patient could relax. Ochiba used them as a weapon. His target of choice was the lower abdomen where there are many organs, such as the small and large intestine, and no ribs. This was a spot that Ochiba could cause excruciating pain and a slow death if untreated. Another favorite spot was the same area in the back, where he would hit the all important kidneys. By hitting with these senbon, Ochiba could cripple an opponent and set up for the death blow. This is what he would attempt now.

Ochiba, being a counter fighter, waited for his opponent to make movement. He didn’t know anything about this woman. Well, almost. He knew that she utilized projectiles. He wasn’t inexperienced enough to assume that she relied heavily on projectiles, but he knew that it was a possibility. Due to this knowledge, and the reliance of the shinobi arts of hands, he kept his eyes on her hands. Many people liked to watch eyes to look for movement, as well as a mental tactic. Not Ochiba. He liked to do what was most practical, and often times, that was to watch the hands or the feet, depending on the situation. He saw a sudden movement of her hand into a pouch. Instantly, with the thought of possible projectiles on his mind, he dropped his right knee to the ground, potentially dodging what she may be throwing. To take away more target area, he turned his left shoulder back, making his upper body less squared up to his opponent. It twisted his body, but the torque he generated from this sudden movement was helpful to his counter attack. As he dropped and turned his shoulder, he rolled his right hand ninety degrees upwards and in front of him, releasing the senbon and opening his hand completely so that the senbon were released with force from his hand towards his target. He aimed for the lower abdomen. He was no expert marksman, so he knew from training this maneuver that he may need help with hitting his target. This is where his “Manipulate Senbon Technique” came into play. A chakra string, one for each finger, attached itself to one of the senbon. He made sure this force was directed towards the area he wanted to hit.

At this point, a part of him realized that she wasn’t throwing anything at him. When he threw the senbon at the woman, she was in the process of raising her hand above her head. By the time the senbon would reach the area his target was, she would have had only enough time to release the smoke pellet that was in her hand. At close range like this, it was difficult to dodge projectiles. It took a skilled shinobi to do so. It took an extremely skilled shinobi to dodge projectiles at close range while thinking about another tactic they were in the middle of employing. The senbon would certainly disrupt her current plans, and if Ochiba was successful in his senbon attack, she would be in extreme pain. Senbon inside of internal organs aren’t pleasant.

[word count, 831]

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Age : 32 Posts : 1495

Hisako never had things go too easy in her life. That was why the thought of finishing this encounter quickly seemed less and less likely the more she thought about it. The boy in front seemed to have taken a more defensive stance which intrigued Hisako. She has never seen a puppeteer that used defensive techniques and being skilled in all kinds of blades and fighting close distance battles, Hisako knew a lot about the way people stood. This current stance implied that her opponent was tense and ready for battle but waited for the opponent to make the first move which seemed odd to Hisako. As her hand reached for her pouch, to remove the smoke bomb, thoughts charged and stormed her head almost lightning fast. It seemed very unlikely that a mid range ninja – a puppet user would just stand around and waste time he could use to apply his pressure. A mid range ninja almost always had the advantage and they tend to showcase that because if they didn’t, they give time for a close range ninja to come close, which most of the times means certain death for the mid ranger. That was why the rather passive behavior seemed a little odd to Hisako and she was a little intrigued to find out just what the youth had in him.

Hisako presumed herself a skilled kunoichi with a blade, she could hold her own against multiple opponents and had no problems deflecting almost any type of projectile at any range. The problem was in her current situation that Hisako didn’t have a blade in her hand. In fact, one of her hand was raised in the air when the boy decided that it was time for him to finally reveal his act. The boy thrust his hand forward, in a manner that would have suggested that he used a projectile however Hisako couldn’t see one. “Senbon” a thought ran through her head in split instant. Normally Hisako could easily dodge them from the trajectory of the boy’s hand alone, had she had a kunai or just about any other weapon in her hands, she could have deflected them with relative ease. The problem was that Hisako’s left arm was empty and the right one raised in the air, this gave the girl very few options to consider with even less time. As a matter of fact she didn’t have time to consider the options, just to do whatever came to her mind, something to keep the senbon from their target.

The boy’s hand aimed a little lower than expected. Reasonable, senbon would go in deeper in the lower parts of her body. Due to senbon being really thin, they aren’t too flexible when it comes to using them: if one aims a spot that has no vital or pressure points, they will only cause minor pain and irritation, if the spot has muscles, they will relax but the senbon are also easily removed because they don’t go in deep, unless the other muscles are hit and relaxed as well. Bones and similar things always get in the way of senbon users as well, due to their light weight and thinness senbon don’t go in deep and are easily obstructed from their target. Boy’s use of senbon was commendable, using them during an opening, aiming a spot with no obstructions during a moment when Hisako was unlikely to do something about it. Indeed there was little to do for the girl in this situation, avoiding the senbon completely was impossible at this point. A thought stormed into the girl’s head, Hisako released the smoke pellet she had and drove her left arm in the way of the senbon. Sharp pain resonated in her left arm that Hisako used to block the needles, Hisako could’ve sworn one of them touched the bone but as the smoke spread she was at least remotely safe and carried on with her previously devised plan. As Hisako activated her clone and jumped into the trench, she removed the senbon from her arm on route to the boy’s behind. Since Hisako wasn’t too delicate with it, it caused a small stream of blood to come out, the blood didn’t keep coming so Hisako thought this should be dealt with.

The girl didn’t display any emotion while sneaking, an ordinary shinobi may have been angered by pain or viewed the shed of his own blood as a offense, Hisako definitely knew a guy who would take such transgression very seriously but Hisako’s emotions didn’t change, while sneaking behind the boy, Hisako drawn her blades out, unless she gives the boy another opening, there’s no way that she would have to skip anything like that again. If her imbued with lightning chakra hit connects to the boy’s back as he deals with her clone since Hisako always tried to time her strike just few moments after the clone is brought down, enough to let someone realize something was fishy but not enough remotely to do something too fancy, Hisako planned the follow up which should be enough to give the boy little opening for anything.

Age : 30 Posts : 644

Ochiba couldn’t see his target’s reaction to the senbon. The smoke pellet clouded his view. This didn’t help ease his tension about this fight. She was a crafty one. She used projectiles to cover her explosives. She used smoke pellets to start fights, undoubtedly to give her an edge that was not intended for a straight up fight. She could be anywhere, now, he thought. This line of thinking was why he was surprised when he saw her charge out of the dissipating smoke straight at him.

He had slowly been standing up when he saw the clone coming. Of course, he had no idea it was a clone. He believed that she had thrown the smoke pellet to reduce his reaction to her charge. It was a clever tactic in Ochiba’s mind. Caught in an off-balance stance half way between kneeling and standing, Ochiba didn’t have many options. He virtually had no more projectiles on his person, and he didn’t have time to dig out the one projectile he did have. His opponent was coming in quickly. Fortunately, he had trained for a situation similar to this over and over. With his understanding of the human anatomy through his medical and puppetry training, he recognized the knees and ankles as a weak point on the body. It didn’t take too much force to damage and cripple a person’s leg, especially when they had forward momentum. His target now had great speed coming at him, and with his puppet set up and his unorthodox stance, one of his trained maneuvers came into play. Ochiba activated his Kugutsu no Jutsu, sending five strings to each of his puppets. His right hand controlled Bloodhound, his offensive puppet who was still in his robe, making him look as if his torso wasn’t extremely skinny. His left hand controlled Birdcage, his defensive puppet. He didn’t have the time nor the control to have either one stand up and counter. Fortunately, this trained maneuver didn’t require much control. He activated Bloodhound’s swords. These three foot swords came out of Bloodhound’s arms, just under the palm. One sword, Bloodhound’s left arm sword, laid behind him. This one was key to this maneuvers’ success.

With his opponent charging at him and getting close, Ochiba threw his body at his target’s knees. He dipped his left shoulder toward the ground and pushed hard with his legs. He would crash into his opponent’s knees. The intent was to potentially damage the enemy’s legs and, if he could, cause the target to trip over him. If he was even more lucky, the opponent would fall onto the exposed blade.

However, something was wrong. When he crashed into the opponent, he found himself hitting the ground hard as a puff of smoke surrounded him. A clone! He sprang to his feet. Throwing himself at the clone turned him 180 degrees so that he was looking back towards the village. He had no idea where the shinobi trying to kill him was. All he knew is that she had been directly behind his current position the last time he had seen her. He acted quickly. He posted Birdcage directly behind him. He was afraid that the target had moved back and had thrown projectiles after the clone. By posting Birdcage behind him, he wouldn’t take any damage from that sort of attack. It was also best to be able to see Bloodhound. He never wanted to not know where Bloodhound was. He relied heavily on him for dealing damage, and if he was damaged himself, he didn’t want to run into the secret weapon stored within him.

With Birdcage glued to his back, he braced for impact. His eyes shifted from place to place, looking for a potential ambush. Several seconds passed without the thudding and impact of projectiles. He relaxed a little bit, commending himself for his quick reaction to a potential situation. At the same time, he became very wary. He was facing a crafty opponent and he didn’t know where she was. His head was on a swivel now, constantly scanning his environment for the enemy. Hopefully his paranoia would come in handy now. He kept Birdcage very close, his left hand directly on him, ready to move at any moment. If he saw his enemy directly, he had Bloodhound ready. Bloodhound was close as well, but he would move him out a few meters if the woman didn’t attack soon.

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Age : 32 Posts : 1495

Hisako was starting to get a little annoyed. This was very much not like her. Annoyance was something Hisako felt very often yet she always wanted to be completely devoid of feelings during battle. Still annoyance was a feeling that could’ve worked for her in this situation. The boy followed Hisako’s plan with almost pitch perfect accuracy yet he did something that Hisako wouldn’t have predicted, he turned around and he could’ve seen Hisako approach with the lightning punch, forcing the girl to remain hidden in the trench. What annoyed Hisako was that she was so close to winning, a puppeteer without the ability to control his puppets precisely would’ve fallen like a leaf during autumnal storm. Still Hisako’s attack made the boy reveal quite few details that could have been picked up: his first slimmer puppet used swords on it’s hands, Hisako wasn’t aware of them and that could’ve been nasty if they were revealed to her at an inconvenient moment. The second thing that the boy did was confirm Hisako’s suspicions about the slim one being the damage and the big one being the control. This was more useful to a ninja than someone may think, whenever the youth will move his puppet, Hisako will know what purpose it serves.

Still the boy was barricaded rather nicely with his duo. He looked ready to repel an attack from close distance as demonstrated by Hisako’s clone, Hisako herself would’ve dodged the counter-attack but still an attack like that would still not have been a successful one. Once again and idea was born in the girl’s mind, fueled by bloodlust and desire to leave the boy defenseless. Yet the idea was too risky to follow up like the Sucker Punch jutsu. Such a shame the jutsu was spoiled too fast, with Hisako’s amazing stealth the boy would’ve not seen her coming with the punch. The girl never bothered her mind with trying to repeat it now, the boy had already seen it so he is unlikely to fall for it even if he hasn’t seen the whole maneuver. Hisako seen his puppets for couple of moments during the distraction she caused while she ran the trench behind the boy. Sweet irony made her once again end up in front of him yet hidden. Hisako glanced slightly through the trench, just diagonally to boy’s right side. He was unlikely to have noticed it even if he looked like a living scan, he was looking at somewhere else at the time.

Hisako pulled out two shuriken and quickly tied them with some wire, her hands moved quickly and without a sign that she was engaging an opposing ninja, to her this was just another job, more so her hands worked fast with excitement, she had a chance to disable the boy’s defense once again even if this plan went with quite some danger. Hisako put her newly made toy down, she had to come up with something more so she also put another explosive tag on a kunai and put it back in her pouch, with skilled and used to this very action hands it only took a more than a second. One thing that the kunoichi noticed during her small peek was that the boy liked to keep his puppets close, she thought maybe she could use that to her advantage. It was too bad that her two shuriken toy took two hands to utilize properly, she could’ve finished this rather fast for the second time that day if she had more hands to use. “Am I regretting working alone?” Hisako wondered rhetorically without developing the thought Hisako jumped out of the trench from the same position, facing the boy, throwing the two shuriken at the same time. The trick was that the shuriken were far off, they were spread left and right so far that they raised no suspicion, Hisako made sure to throw them at the same time she showed herself and to create the illusion that she didn’t know where to aim. The purpose of the shuriken were to weigh the wire, tying the boy together with his puppets as the wire met resistance. It was all the wire Hisako had left so it had to be enough to tie someone together with two puppets down. The wire was also rather hard to notice in the heat of the moment especially with shuriken on each end attracting the attention.

Just as Hisako finished the action of tossing her first weapon, if she was not interrupted, she threw the second part of her plan, the explosive kunai she made making it so that the time after the tying down and the second projectile was as short as possible. This was an impressive plan to come up with in the heat of the moment and one fueled by bloodlust but just as Hisako released her kunai, she immediately drawn her blades, she knew better than to underestimate her opponent, especially as skilled and lucky as this one was.

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Age : 30 Posts : 644

Ochiba was surprised, and wary, to find that his opponent wasn’t behind him. He was surprised because she had gotten to her current position without his detection. He noticed that she had used the trench and took note of it. If he lost her again,, he would keep his eye on those trenches. He was wary due to the fact that the last time he thought she was attacking him, it turned out to be a clone. This could very potentially be another clone and a distraction. When he saw her throw something, however, this thought changed.

Most people wouldn’t notice wire on a weapon, just like they wouldn’t notice senbon flying straight at them. Ochiba had been working with both for a long time. As a puppeteer, Ochiba worked with wire constantly, and although his form of wire was chakra based, anything that resembled wire in his daily surroundings was usually noticed. Now, when the girl threw the shuriken, Ochiba was the wire. Using his right hand, he sliced upward with Bloodhound on both sides, preventing the girl’s trap from occurring. The shuriken went flying, one of them flying towards the crowd of workers. Ochiba didn’t notice that detail, however. After the double slice, Ochiba had Bloodhound charge the enemy, who was roughly seven meters away. This was a distance he felt comfortable. He had room to work with for Bloodhound and a decent amount of distance and time to react to projectiles and jutsu with Birdcage.

As Bloodhound was sent on the offense, a kunai was thrown at Ochiba. Following close behind was an explosive tag. Shit! He didn’t have the skill nor the time to block the kunai with Bloodhound’s sword, especially while on the offense. With his left hand, Ochiba had Birdcage go limp and lean backwards. Ochiba dropped to one knee, head up to see what he was doing. Birdcage now rested on Ochiba’s frame. He was lower than the projectile was now, so he didn’t have to worry about it hitting Birdcage. In fact, he didn’t have to worry about much now that he was using Birdcage as a body shield. Both puppets could withstand up to and including C rank weapons and techniques. One explosive tag wasn’t enough to kill him or even seriously harm him. He might feel the shock wave, but with Birdcage in the way of the kunai, the blast, and the potential shrapnel, he was protected.

Ochiba kept his head tilted upwards during this maneuver so that he could see where he should attack with Bloodhound. Bloodhound charged towards the target, right sword raised high into the air, telegraphing the first attack. The first move rarely ever did the trick. It would take a combination of strikes to take most opponents down. This was fine with Ochiba. He had a few tricks up his sleeve and a few combinations he had practiced that could make this quick work. Potentially. Hopefully the opponent would react in a favorable way.

At this point, he wanted to end this fight quickly. Puppets used little chakra to control, however, it was a constant chakra drain. Most forms of ninjutsu require massive amounts of chakra consumption for one quick technique that could be devastating if it connected. Using puppets required very little in comparison. However, it was always safest to eradicate the target immediately without breaking a sweat. He was lightly sweating now. His breathing had slightly increased. He wasn’t near tired yet, but if the fight went on and on, it would eventually physically exhaust him to the point that he would be fatigued. Chakra consumption past that point could result in his own death. Preferring to die in battle because his opponent was plain better than him, not because he was too weak to get past a stalemate, was more desirable.

All the while, he kept the mission in his mind. If this assault didn’t end the fight and the fight turned 180 degrees again, he would use misdirection and attack the villagers with Bloodhound. Not only would that get him one step closer towards completing the mission successfully, it would provoke a reaction from this shinobi he was fighting, surely.

With her projectile attack prevented, Bloodhound charged the shinobi from the Village Hidden in the Leaves, right sword raised high into the air.

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Age : 32 Posts : 1495

The boy that Hisako was facing off against left an impression. Not only did he make Hisako’s Sucker Punch jutsu not worth finishing but he also managed to overcome Hisako’s trap, for a brief moment a worry came to Hisako’s heart as one of the two shuriken went towards the villagers. This wouldn’t have meant anything good normally but the villagers were too far away for the shuriken to inflict too serious of damage. More so the shuriken just disappeared in the depths of the young trees, probably just hitting a small branch and got stuck in it. It was rather strange that Hisako still didn’t feel really annoyed by her opponent, more so she felt impressed by his continuous showing off of something that an ordinary ninja wouldn’t be able to do. Sure his turn around during Hisako’s sneak attack may have been nothing more than dumb luck but spotting a wire required some skill, Hisako herself couldn’t really see the senbon that were thrown and those were even easier to see than a wire, especially if one is distracted by shuriken. When an opponent misses on purpose one may be drawn to becoming confused and falling for a similar trap yet this boy showed remarkable ability by seeing this through.

What Hisako also noticed, or rather didn’t notice, was that the boy didn’t look very scared or troubled, Hisako couldn’t pick up any signs of exhaustion from where she was. That also left a rather strong impression on the girl. This boy is a strong ninja and no doubt could do a lot of great things for his village. It was so unfortunate that good for his village crossed so hard with good for Konoha and cost so many lives, Hisako felt desperation to kill the boy, not because she felt heroic or to avenge the fallen villagers, deep down she just craved blood to be shed and she knew that whatever logic she may have followed up to this point, the second she would smell blood, Hisako would lose it and become the dancing primal being with an objective to kill, she would stop thinking entirely. Hisako activated the tag just as the boy hid, she knew that the puppet would withstand it but it still was an explosion, it will make the villagers keep away as far as possible and it should shake the puppet up, at least weaken some screws or make it feel at least a little damage, more so it will make the boy stop feeling untouchable. A loud explosion echoed, sending any living being except the two fighting running away for their life.

This time the puppeteer showed initiative, something that Hisako thought was completely not like him, she thought of him as a counter fighter and accepted that he functions flawlessly as such but he sent his assault puppet for an attack while covered with the defensive one. This and the natural lag and attention required to make two puppets function should’ve provided enough trouble for the boy not to be able to send the second one for a few seconds, that was all Hisako needed. Hisako was a skilled close combat fighter and liked to think of herself as a skilled swordswoman, luckily she had drawn her swords beforehand, otherwise she would’ve been few moments short to execute her counter. Hisako knew that the boy had to be smarter than that, he had to know better than just to engage a weapon user with a puppet, she couldn’t afford to engage in a clash with his toy as short as it would be. Hisako twisted her feet sideways and started off the initial movements of her jutsu. This technique was a tiring one and would leave Hisako hyperventilating for some time but she wasn’t a kunoichi that heavily relied on using chakra so using this move should do. While the puppet attacked, incorporating the small lag that was always present in less experienced puppeteers, Hisako started staggering left and right, in a way similar to how a drunk person staggers, the actual goal of this was to shake her balance a little off because her sudden and incredibly fast move would’ve made her trip and fall but with her balance shifting from her movements, Hisako could’ve finally started the dance.

For her technique it always served useful to know where your opponent would strike, the puppet wasn’t very fast, while it’s speed was remarkable, it wasn’t as fast as a shinobi could’ve been. As the sword of the puppet came dangerously close, Hisako set her jutsu off, immediately kicking her body off with her right foot forward, behind the puppet in a similar manner like a ballerina would’ve jumped forward but in a far greater speed, without taking a moment to admire her dodge, Hisako performed a swift pirouette-like slash that was able to easily kill a person or cut an object in half if unprotected. Hisako’s goal with this counter was to either cut the attacking puppet in half from behind it or if the puppet managed to endure the extremely well placed hit to damage it as much as possible, perhaps even disabling it’s use for the duration of the battle…

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Age : 30 Posts : 644

An explosion went off above Ochiba. He felt the pressure of it on Birdcage, who he was using as an explosion shield at the moment. Shrapnel from the kunai fell around him, hot from the blast. Ochiba was unscathed, however. The shockwave from one explosive tag is minor in comparison to other bombs or simply more tags. He had full faith that Birdcage had made it out of that exchange no worse for wear. Ochiba dipped his left shoulder and used his chakra strings to roll Birdcage off his back to his left side and up to standing position. He stood as well.

Ochiba noticed his opponent’s movements. It looked as if his target were trying to outmaneuver Bloodhound, as if she were going to dodge whatever attack came at her. It was at this moment that Ochiba knew for sure that the opponent in front of him was a real enemy. No clone would do that because their purpose was to be temporary anyway. Her actual life, though temporary, was surely not intended to end in a puppet flurry, so the movements of his target reassured him that this was the real opponent.

Knowing that she was going to dodge, he didn’t want to put much effort into the flurry. In fact, he wanted to use a half-hearted thrust and follow her wherever she moved after that. His fighting instincts served Ochiba well on this exchange. The opponent dodged to Bloodhound’s left side. She was incredibly fast. Faster than he was, most definitely. If she got in close, he definitely didn’t want to keep it in close. This range was perfectly fine. Ochiba turned Bloodhound’s body as his opponent dodged, turning the head more in order to keep it straight with the enemy. The target began a spinning counter attack. Ochiba saw the opportunity and went for it. Bloodhound’s liquid spray shot out of his mouth while the back of the woman’s head was facing him. This was so that as she spun all the way around, the liquid would strike her in the face. Being so close and in the middle of an attack already, Ochiba failed to see how she would be able to dodge the poison, although anything is possible.

The woman’s attack was successful up to a certain extent. The robe made Bloodhound look much bigger width wise than his torso really was, thanks to his shoulders. The blade sliced through the left side of his robe, ruining it. Unfortunately, part of the blade did hit Bloodhound’s torso. With resistance, it damaged Bloodhound, taking a slice out of him. If the blades were stronger, there would have been more damage. This one strike was not crippling, however, several of these strikes could be.

Following up on the spray, Bloodhound was controlled so that his left sword would slash downward at a forty-five degree angle towards her hip. If the spray struck the target and she had to close her eyes for a moment, this close range slash may hit. Of course, nothing was ever a safe bet.

He kept his opponent’s speed in mind. He had his defensive maneuver prepared. If she charged him, he would be ready. He just hoped that Bloodhound didn’t take any more of those powerful counter attacks. If she did throw more of those, however, he would also be ready to move Bloodhound out of the way. It would be good, if the spray and the hip strike didn’t work, to get her to chase Bloodhound. She was faster than him, even more so than his puppet, but the spin had to be done from close range and spins gave precious moments of reaction time that Ochiba might be able to capitalize on. This Konoha shinobi certainly had respectable combat abilities and he was curious to see how she would react to the poison. Truth be told, it wasn’t much of a poison. Ironically, his poison didn’t really poison anything. Yet. It would provide a good distraction, however. It didn’t need to hit the eyes directly to cause them to burn. It needed only to hit the face. After being bombarded by his opponents sly moves, he finally used a sly move of his own. Maybe, if she had been underestimating him, this would teach her to not make that mistake.

Jutsu:

Poison:

CP:

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

The fight with the puppeteer was becoming more of a scuffle than Hisako thought it would be as once again what would’ve been an awesome attempt to end it all ended in the boy avoiding defeat. While Hisako wasn’t hitting on the boy himself, rather on his puppet, the puppet in question was the main damage as far as Hisako was concerned. Just as Hisako’s head was away, just before the spin was completed, the girl heard a strange sound, sounding a lot like spraying. “Shit” she thought, she should’ve counted on the puppet having poison… Just as her head turned at the puppet the liquid found it’s target, however the dumb luck that followed the boy before so closely smiled at least slightly for Hisako as well as a large chunk of her long hair covered some of the face, eyes being in that part, from the liquid. While normally her hair wouldn’t have interfered with the motion as it was too fast to matter, in this occasion it also helped her. Hisako still didn’t count on it helping too much as the poison still did come in contact with some of her facial area, it just didn’t impact her movements as much as it would’ve had had things gone differently.

Still her blades cut the puppets robe and got a nice slash onto the puppets core, another slash like that could put it in two even if Hisako didn’t intend on using this jutsu again. Had the puppet been a bit wider and maybe the cut would’ve been enough but at this occasion too much was wasted on the robe. At least now the puppet won’t hide anything from the girl and with her skilled swordswoman’s eye she can easily block most of anything from it. Just as the previous chain of events concluded, a sound of cutting air reached Hisako’s ear. From sheer instinct Hisako blocked at just the right spot. From what she seen before, Hisako knew that the boy liked to target lower area, if he has an option – legs so Hisako managed to not only block the blow, but seeing how the poison didn’t get in her eyes, she had to counter. Using her knee, Hisako kicked the block up hitting the blunt side of her blocking blade, making the puppet raise it’s hand with the sword and at the same time, the girl slashed with all her force and speed aiming at the joint of the arm that attacked her before while keeping the other hand reserved for blocking the other sword.

Hisako’s academy knowledge was still fresh, she remembered the main weaknesses of the puppet user well: they are frail at close range, they tend to have main damage puppets, destroying that makes them ineffective and the weakness of their puppets is always the joints. She knew that if the sword connects, the damage puppet will have even less chances of facing Hisako in a sword fight than it had to begin with, with only one sword, if the boy doesn’t get the puppet out of there, Hisako had easy access to the other arm and then the deep cut she already made on the puppet’s carcass. Still the boy’s poison was a problem, while Hisako was affected by it already ergo she could have stopped worrying about being hit with poison again, she still didn’t know what the poison does? If it indeed does whatever poisons normally do, how much Hisako has? Still judging from the fact that it takes skin contact, it was supposed to be either acid or a burning poison and from what she’s felt up to now, Hisako deduced it wasn’t acid.

Hisako was really starting to get surprised how much effort she has to put to fight against this boy. She definitely was rather close to winning but she had to admit that so was the boy, he managed to apply the poison on her successfully and so long all that Hisako managed to return to him was a deep slash on his favored puppet and some loosened screws that were barely worth mentioning on his defensive puppet. She also used out her wire which while wasn’t of prime importance to her fighting style, still has never yet happened to Hisako. The way that the fight was going definitely made Hisako put her best effort into her moves, something she may have been lacking before due to the immense amount of analyzing and strategizing she’s been doing up to this point.

Age : 30 Posts : 644

There it was. There was the body language Ochiba had been hoping for. His opponent began to move her left arm into position to block the low strike. His training and knowledge of the human body served him well. As the block began, Ochiba retracted the blade back into the arm of Bloodhound, shortening it by two feet. The sword was now too far away from the target to hit. This meant that his blade didn’t strike the block. As Bloodhound’s arm lined up with the blocking arm, Ochiba shot the blade out again. The sword was in range of the target now and just past the spot she was blocking.

Still, it was surprising that she would be able to block in the first place. With the spray having successfully hit her in the face, the block was a blind block, relying on instinct and hearing. Ochiba seriously doubted her ever having the opportunity to train against someone that used a blade that retracted. Not many existed outside of the world of puppets. Relying on instinct may not serve her well in this case. Her block was still in use when he tried the quick maneuver. In fact, Ochiba’s quick tactic was blind in a sense of him timing it. It works because of the speed in which he retracts and extends it. When timed correctly as he had, the blade will be past the area in which a block would be and extended again just before contact with the target. In this case, the target was the all important hip.

It is very rare to see a block that is close to the body. It is even more rare to see a block that directly on the area it is protecting. A block is most effective when it can take momentum away by meeting the attacking force in the middle. This also protects more area. If she blocked close enough to her body to block Ochiba’s quick trick, then he knew he didn’t have to worry about her blocking abilities too much. His strategy for taking down someone with ineffective blocks was much more fun than the strategy he was currently employing.

If his trick worked, the blade would hit just below the hip and into the muscles of her left thigh. It would stop halfway into her femur (the thigh bone) at a downward angle. This would be a debilitating blow. It was also potentially life threatening. The femoral artery that runs down the femur in the left leg is located left to femur. This means that Ochiba’s blow would slice through an artery. Bleeding out, if successful, would be an issue.

Even though Ochiba was extremely confident in his maneuvers’ success, he knew better than to rely on one attack. Because the left hand was busy attempting to block his blade, it would be harder for her to block the left side of her body than the right. Using Bloodhound’s right hand, Ochiba utilized a thrusting motion. He thrusted Bloodhound’s right sword towards the left portion of the solar plexus. The solar plexus is the muscle that contracts and allows for breathing. That detail didn’t matter entirely too much if the blade was able to cut completely through her because anything it hit would be vital. Of course, the strike was blockable, and if his leg strike was successful, she may fall in a way that dodged the hit, but it was worth throwing.

That battle was looking hopeful for Ochiba. He had his opponent in a position that he wanted her. His offensive puppet, although having taken some damage, was still absolutely functional and on the aggression. He had connected with the poison he had developed. He was interested to see the effects of it in battle. If for whatever unforeseen reason his leg strike didn’t connect or his thrust didn’t connect, the battle could continue for a long while. He would have plenty of time to observe how his opponent reacted. Of course, with his poison taking effect, it would be harder for her to think, as well as block and dodge. Her eyes were surely getting ready to water, even if the poison didn’t hit her in the eyes. The beauty of his creation was that just hitting around the eyes caused watering. Watery eyes are difficult to have and successfully fight. It’s almost as if you have to fight your own body and your opponent at the same time. This was something that took away valuable concentration, and if the swordplay trick he had employed wasn’t successful, he would need all the help he could get. Keeping the details of his mission in mind, he waited to see the coming events unfold. Hopefully, they would prove him to be the victor.

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Age : 32 Posts : 1495

Timing and flow was everything to a ninja who utilized weaponry. Hisako had a grand plan of removing the puppet’s arm but she also always felt the flow of her movements: the block, then moving her leg up to kick the sword up, then use the device on her elbow to put the blade to her elbow, slash at the joint. There was something wrong with that flow however. It wasn’t even a full second that Hisako had to notice it, but the inexperience of her opponent and the slight lag there was between his moves added to Hisako’s natural speed gave her enough time to realize that the flow was broken. Knowing that her opponent so desperately craved to hit her hips, Hisako felt just where this was going. Her opponent probably didn’t see that Hisako wasn’t relying solely on instincts as her eyes were wide open, the liquid didn’t reach them also just a brief moment before the supposed moment that the blades were supposed to collide, Hisako heard a sound in the puppet, making the complete time to realize that things won’t go as planned more than enough but not exactly enough to make another block.

Hisako gripped her second blade, the one she kept for blocking the other arm. The thing that she intended to do was the only way that Hisako could think of in the amazingly limited time she had. Hisako activated the Fukigane, making the blades effectively retract to her elbows in a full circle. There was no way her opponent could’ve known of such device even if it’s highly visible on her arms, it looks more like an armor piece. The full circle that the blades before placing on Hisako’s elbows, making her switch stance, would’ve deflected the blade, unless her opponent switched it again, in which case Hisako would have enough time to move her leg away, she knew that it was the target and from now on was aware of the extendable and retractable arms that the puppets have. Also the “sharp elbow” stance made it easier to block similar manner of attacks because her blades become her arms, she can literally move them as her own body even if the stance was forcefully triggered. Had the blade not been retracted, the force of the machinery that swings the blade would’ve pushed it sideways, making the arm slash the ground and leaving it open for a cutting attack. Unfortunately Hisako couldn’t do that because her blades were now locked on her elbows, making her switch in a position similar to a boxer’s. It was an effective and original style – “the sharp elbows” but Hisako only used it in training, never in a live situation.

Just as the formation was finished, Hisako got plenty of use for her style as she notice the other blade going for her solar plexus, this was a dangerous area to be hit in but Hisako wasn’t about to, using her forearm with the blade attached to it she pushed the blade down, while activating the device again, making the blades return back into her hands in a full circle. This was the fastest that Hisako “tic-tacked” with the device but it was capable of faster had Hisako had superior reaction time, even with her speed she could only activate the device so fast even if she did it almost immediately. The goal of the re-activation was once again to sever the thrusting arm that now thrust it’s blade into thin air. If the circling was successful it could’ve definitely removed the puppet’s arm but Hisako didn’t count on that for the sole reason of her opponent having seen this being possible, he may have moved the arm. The notion of him facing a weapon user on a one on one fight was a nice one but Hisako felt fairly confident in beating the puppet still. At that moment a sensation tingled on Hisako’s face, it suddenly felt like she was stung by several mosquitoes at the same time in multiple areas, the pain burned up, then went down to a small irritation.

Hisako suddenly realized that she acquired a need to finish the fight quick. After completing her defense, the girl rolled sideways as fast as she could closer to the trenches, she didn’t intend to use them again, it would’ve been to obvious but the roll was supposed to mask her double shuriken that she tossed at her target. Puppeteers always need to see the field to respond, the way she did it there was no way that her opponent could defend without either having to move or block with his other puppet obstructing his view with the puppet, just as she finished her roll on her knee, Hisako swung her right blade at the center of the puppet she was fighting, had it not been moved away it would’ve certainly been cut in half, if it had, Hisako placed her hand in a comfortable position to defend even if she did make a false swipe cutting the air.

Stuff Used:

Age : 30 Posts : 644

Ochiba was nearly shocked by her ability to defend herself. With a few crafty maneuvers of her own, she managed to deflect his sneaky blows. His retraction technique proved unsuccessful, as did the thrust. It was time for a new plan. He pulled Bloodhound’s hands towards him, elbows back, swords pointed at his target. Whatever attack she had initiated on his arms would be unsuccessful.

He read her body movement as she began the roll. He noticed the basic maneuver instantly. As she began the roll to her left, Ochiba spun Bloodhound to the right. He turned his left blade horizontal to the ground. As the puppet spun to take a knee, the blade would slash outwards and low, aiming at her lower back during the roll. Whether it hit or miss, the next move was to retract that blade so that it wouldn’t get stuck. Following up quickly, the right hand would come downwards in a thrust towards the left shoulder. The arms would be Ochiba’s new target. He wanted to get rid of the arms so that the opponent couldn’t use those strange blades. The thrust would occur just after the shuriken would be released from that hand so that it was fully extended when he went for the blow. This hand would pull back quickly as well, except the sword on the right arm wouldn’t retract. Now, Bloodhound would stand again, and just a moment within pulling back the right hand, the left hand would come swinging down, towards the collarbone, the sword extending as it went.

During this flurry, Ochiba saw the hand of his opponent that was closest to him extending. A lost of his concentration was focused on his puppet, but he calmly stepped to the left. Half of his body now hid behind Birdcage and the shuriken would miss their marks. He began to wonder just how many of those she had left.

If the counter to the back was successful, it would be a large, painful gash. It wouldn’t finish the fight, but she would know about it and it would slow her down. The lower body relied heavily on the muscles in the back and the core. By damaging the area, she would be slowed down. This strike didn’t have finishing or crippling potential, however. What did have crippling potential was the thrust. Her hand was extended, leaving the area vulnerable. If she blocked the back strike with her right hand, it may not be available to block the shoulder attack. Of course, the thrust wouldn’t kill her. It was intended to neutralize her arm. The collarbone strike to the right side of her body, if it struck, would not only cripple, but it would end in her death if it were successful. The damage dealt would be immobilizing. Death by blood loss would come quickly. Naturally, at this point, he didn’t expect for any of his attacks to work. She had proven crafty and quick. He needed to connect with something soon. He just hoped that she soon found her way over to him. Really, he wanted to fight her up close more than anything. Despite her obvious advantage in speed and experience, he had one advantage: numbers. Even if she could finish taking out Bloodhound, he still had Birdcage on his side. Hopefully it would be finished now, but in case it wasn’t, Ochiba kept his defensive maneuvers prepared.

He began to feel the pressures of this fight a little more. His heart rate was increased and so was his body temperature. He had begun to sweat more. Of course, a part of that could have been the heat off of the wildfire that he had nearly forgotten about. It was getting closer and closer. It was close enough to feel the heat from it at this point. It a matter of moments, it would have caught up to the area they were fighting. That wasn’t a good sign. They needed to end this quickly, for both of their sakes. Her safety wasn’t exactly on the forefront of his mind, though. If he could finish her soon, he would make it out of this place, mission complete, without a problem. If not, well, she wasn’t the only thing he would have to battle today.

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CP:

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

Fighting this brat proved to be a lot more of a nuisance than Hisako had previously hoped. Whatever strategies were taught in the Academy or by other shinobi to face a puppeteer were knocked flat, and this kid wasn’t even an experienced one, from his voice that Hisako had heard before she would’ve given the brat about 14 years… Aiming at the joints proved useless as the kid easily predicted and avoided her strikes even with her natural speed and his slight barely felt lag between when he commands his puppet to do and when it does it. The kid must’ve known the body language really well, Hisako wondered if he was a medical ninja as well since he managed to predict her moves solely from what muscles tense up which wasn’t easy in a heat of battle, while trying to manipulate multiple strings, controlling a puppet is a chore of it’s own. The purpose of Hisako’s roll was to get some distance plus mask the two shuriken that she tossed while in mid air to roll, however it appeared that the puppet started to swing in the opposite side. “My back!” a thought flashed in Hisako’s mind as her back was perfectly exposed during a roll even if the puppet managing to exploit it with Hisako’s speed was a feat of it’s own. Being in mid roll, only one option came to Hisako’s mind to avoid the blow but it was risky, instead of finishing the roll normally, Hisako stabbed the swords into the ground, propelling upwards and over the first strike.

It appeared that the girl was lucky to avoid the first blow as almost momentarily after that came another one that targeted her shoulders. An idea came into Hisako mind once again, what if the boy wasn’t fighting her at his puppet’s full speed? Given the speed she was in and impressively timed and troubling assaults that the puppet made that made Hisako sweat and do her best to avoid, attacks like that were made solely from prediction, there was virtually no way for the puppet to keep up with her so every one of those well timed and potentially lethal blows came out of predicting what she would do. Hisako had plenty experience fighting people that could predict her movements well but that was due to their intellect, trying to beat someone who predicted moves as fast as Hisako’s out of body language was a different case entirely. Hisako’s evasion interrupted not only her opponent’s plans but hers as well as she wasn’t able to finish the roll or perform the side slash to finish the puppet off, instead just stopping her roll by lifting herself in the air with the swords and quickly getting on her feet, whatever was aimed at the location where she would have been would be completely useless in the current situation.

As Hisako stood up, she felt a slight pain on her hip area and a quick glance revealed that there was a very shallow cut made, nothing major, just few drops of blood at best, similar to those cuts she made when she used to be cutting fish at home… “Must’ve been made by myself when I swung the blades to my elbows”, Hisako thought - the circle that the device made cut her leg a little since her hip was extended a bit too far. This may not have been an impactful injury but it was an injury nonetheless, Hisako wasn’t afraid of what it meant as an injury, but it may have been a significant boost of the already incredibly lucky boy’s ego because so long Hisako didn’t manage to land a single hit on him and most likely won’t get much chance seeing how perfectly he predicts her moves. Still Hisako had couple of ideas of how to beat the boy, ideas was never a thing she lacked, the boy switched his preferred target, he may have been lost, maybe he just noticed that Hisako noticed a pattern, no one knew…

The pain in several areas of Hisako’s face, where poison was applied increased, the girl wondered if it was swollen, it reminded her how once she applied ointment that she was allergic to, felt very similar to that time. Also the girl picked up a change of temperature and air concentration, breathing felt heavier not only from the fact that Hisako wasted some chakra, but more so that the actual air was being taken away, the fire must’ve been getting closer. Once again, the fire itself wasn’t going to be of any danger, the smoke however could be, while Hisako knew how to protect from smoke temporarily, she wondered just how cooperative her opponent would be if she suddenly switched her attention to the fire. A spark of anger burst in Hisako’s heart, it may have been natural, from the disability to touch her opponent or just because the way he avoided her attacks, by predicting her movements as if she was just another average and ordinary ninja…That thought always annoys all women, even those as emotionless as Hisako. The newly born anger however served only as a stimulus to use her de facto signature move, if at least one of it’s blows is blocked, the sword-handed puppet would be caught in an everlasting chain of strikes it either had to block or skip, also the strength of the jutsu depends on how long the opponent spends blocking, in fact, the natural instinct to block only makes it stronger as the earlier it is completed the weaker it actually is, not that it mattered for the puppet, unless the jutsu is made useless in some clever way, whatever hits land on the puppet’s carcass should be enough to finish it having in mind the blade’s natural affinity for powerful slashes and unusual cutting prowess.

Without a long delay, Hisako attacked the puppet, starting easy and slow but leaving no spot for counter due to a never ending combination of strikes, striking from left and right, quickly slashing upwards, performing a quick circle, striking from up top. Hisako’s natural affinity for blades plus the fast and not leaving openings for a counterattack technique would’ve been too much for any similar ranked swords wielding opponent, the girl only felt bad that it was actually the puppet that would be broken and not it’s actual master. Still the damaging puppet is and will remain Hisako’s only target for the entire combination.

Spoiler:

Age : 30 Posts : 644

With impressive agility far beyond the capabilities of most humans, the woman pushed off of the ground with her blades mid-roll. Slightly frustrated, Ochiba stopped the assault. Okay, he thought. New tactic. Bloodhound stood up after the spinning slash without continuing the assault. It was time to go fishing.

Ochiba saw blood drip off of her hip. She had a decent cut on her hip if it were dripping blood. He didn’t remember ever connecting with a strike, so that aerial maneuver she did must have gone a bit awry. This eased his frustrations a tad. It was progress, if anything.

The smell of burning wood filled his nostrils. His eyes caught sight of the fire. It was getting very close now. In a few moments, it would be on top of them. Earlier, the exploding kunai had caused the villagers to flee. They weren’t around to combat the fire or defend the base. Ochiba wondered if his opponent realized what the implications of the fire meant. Unless those that were financing this expenditure wanted to spend valuable funds importing workers and supplies on top of paying to rebuild the village damaged, rebuild the villages that would be damaged by the wildfire, and import supplies needed for the survivors, then this tower would be greatly delayed. Even if Ochiba died here in this fight, his mission would be a temporary success. In fact, even if he killed his enemy and took down the tower, another one would most likely begin construction at some point. Any success in this mission was just temporary success, but temporary success was much better than permanent failure. And against this fire, at least in this area, she was alone to combat it.

By now, the burning sensation from his poison was at its’ worst and her eyes were watering, even if it only touched her face. That was one of his advantages right now. Another advantage was the fact that Bloodhound had a longer reach than his opponent. He elbow blades proved well for defense and spinning attacks, as well as evasion, but they didn’t give her the same reach as an extended arm with a sword. He would use that to his advantage while he “fished.”

Reading his opponent’s movement, he saw her begin to spin. For some reason, she didn’t seem to be spinning as fast as she could. He had been taught to not move straight back against a spinning opponent or one that pumped kicks, but her speed had yet to pick up, so he moved Bloodhound straight back a few meters. This was to Ochiba’s right. The enemy followed the movement. He noticed that she picked up speed as she went. Now Ochiba saw the genius in the technique. She was using her momentum to be able to do more and more damage. In his mind, he applauded her, appreciating her skill. He almost wished he didn’t have to eliminate her. He almost wished he could take her back to Kiri and train with her. They could make each other better shinobi. This was the best fight he had ever had to date.

With the precious moment he had while she was just gaining speed toward Bloodhound, Ochiba’s left hand shot into the pouch that contained his chakra pills. He pulled one out and put it into his mouth. As he swallowed it, he instantly felt empowered. He could practically feel his chakra supply increasing. For this prolonged fight he was in, this was just another edge he would get.

His subconscious wondered how his opponent was faring. She must have had a burning sensation with watery eyes. She had just cut herself, and although he couldn’t tell how bad the cut was without looking at it closely, it must have stung at least a little. It was deep enough to bleed. Earlier, she had done a little dance and a strong spinning technique that had cut Bloodhound. He noticed that this maneuver had made her breathing significantly heavier, almost to a point of hyperventilation. From that point, Ochiba had given her no break. She had to constantly keep moving, blocking, and dodging. Even the best got tired, and these two combatants weren’t even close to being the best.

With this thought, Ochiba’s subconscious turned to his own ability. Eventually, he wouldn’t be able to fluidly move Bloodhound out of the way. She was too quick, and when her speed picked up, he would have to be already on the move when she got near. He was skilled for a genin, but he still had lag time with his commands and her speed would expose that. In this precious moment, she was not yet going at that speed as she chased down Bloodhound, and he would enter hit and run mode. For now, it was a matter of timing it correctly.

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Age : 32 Posts : 1495

It seemed that her skilled opponent didn’t fall for the trap right away, either by instinct to dodge or by seeing Hisako’s technique through or a combination of both, this was impressive. The second that at least one blow would’ve been blocked, the puppet would’ve been stuck in a never ending chain of block-or-die strikes, eventually it would’ve failed to block or left an opening. Too bad that the boy managed to keep his puppet dodging constantly, while this didn’t really impress Hisako as much as boy’s skill did before, whenever whatever she did failed, Hisako also felt a little happy. Yoruma clan was a clan of battle loving people and Hisako was a textbook example of a Yoruma, her entire life consisted of combat, she had little social experience only never ending training for her entire life, had it not been so, she would’ve probably found herself dead rather quick today, Hisako had to hand her opponent that, he knew what he was doing even if Hisako was fighting a puppet user the way she wasn’t supposed to: she was taught to engage a puppeteer by closing in and cutting them down quick, they are frail, weak, their puppets are their strength and taking them head-on is fighting on their terms. Initially Hisako fought with that strategy but now she just took on the boy’s assault puppet just to see his strength. At that point the mission was stuck deep inside Hisako’s mind and only the fight mattered, only it’s beauty and danger. Little by little the brat earned Hisako’s respect, he had given her a fight like she hasn’t seen in a long time.

Still, Hisako’s enjoyment didn’t really change anything, she wasn’t one of the people that become overly attached to people they respect, more so Hisako despised those people and constantly measured her respect with her wish to kill them. The boy was still somewhere on Hisako’s hit-list and she wanted to find out his name now more than ever, not because she wanted to report him as the incinerator of the village, his affiliations can probably be found out by those smartass diplomats, that is what they do after all, that is their battle, their pleasure. Hisako wanted to know the kid’s name because she respected him as an opponent and no longer viewed him as someone she must quickly take out for the sake of her assignment, now she had to kill him for her own pleasure, for the enjoyment of overcoming an amazing shinobi, avenging the deaths the boy caused didn’t matter to Hisako at all at that point. She couldn’t ask the boy his name though, breathing proved difficult as it was, had she spoken a word, she may not have found enough air in her lungs to go around and she would’ve had to stop to catch some breaths.

Hisako’s eyes were constantly watering, it looked strange since Hisako didn’t think she got any poison in there, she didn’t fight it, it would’ve made it difficult, the girl let the water flow even if her face felt like a pulsing bag of pain, pain just gave her more anger and motivation to fight, Hisako never considered herself easily discouraged… Slowly her attacks began to pick up the pace, they would soon become even faster than Hisako could hit normally, the girl was impressed by how much chakra her opponent had, she didn’t see him take any supplements since she was invested in destroying his damned puppet, she didn’t care too much too, he could take all the supplement in the world, for the first time in her life Hisako was actually enjoying a long fight. Normally it would scare her and she’d try to run, try to take him out silently when he attempted to kill the workers or the tools, probably would even succeed but now it was different, the girl was angry and glad to be so. That puppet must fall…

Hisako could no longer see some of her moves, she felt the small cut on her hip, it wasn’t an impairment, more so a reminder, she didn’t feel any blood coming out, probably it was coagulated already. Hisako wondered how long have they been fighting, it looked like a whole eternity but it couldn’t have been more than half an hour could it? She constantly wondered similar things, when you are fast time seems to pass faster than it actually does… Hisako could smell some fire incoming, it wasn’t much danger to the building grounds, it will only burn down the small young trees around the area, it won’t be much danger to the workers, they can put it out with the river water or cross to the other side if things go sour. Hisako didn’t know how long with all the hindering it will take to build the tower now. She was feeling rather tense, her breathing picked up. The girl wondered if the assault puppet goes out, how would the boy react? Would he collect it and go away to fix it? Return another day? Would he give up? Would he keep fighting, hoping that his defense puppet can finish the job? Would he try to kill Hisako himself? The last possibility felt unlikely. Right – Left - Spin - Diagonal spin - Hisako kept attacking never losing the rhythm. She was enjoying it. This duel changed the way Hisako would view battles…

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